Leon Kossoff (1926–2019)

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Leon Kossoff (1926–2019) | The painter Leon Kossoff has died at the age of 92. Born in London in 1926 to Russian-Jewish parents, Kossoff studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art and became a member of the ‘School of London’. He is known for his depictions of the city, everyday scenes portrayed through a thick impasto. Kossoff’s works are held in several international collections, including those at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.. In 1995 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.

Lobby group Europa Nostra criticise UNESCO’s tolerance of cruise ships in Venice | Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, secretary general of the lobby group Europa Nostra, delivered a speech at the UNESCO meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan yesterday, criticising the committee for its support of cruise ships passing through the lagoon in Venice. This is a new alternative route, promoted by the City of Venice, that will replace the cruise ships’ traditional route through the city. Quaedvlieg-Mihailović called it a contradiction of UNESCO’s 2014 recommendation that ships be excluded from the lagoon completely and argued that the Italian government had not yet assessed the route’s possible impacts.

Recommended reading | Artist Xaveria Simmons responds to the suggestion from art critics that this year’s Whitney Biennale was ‘not radical enough’ in the Art Newspaper.  In the Guardian, Daniel Boffey explains the concept and schedule behind the Rijksmuseum’s ‘Operation Night Watch’, a livestreamed public restoration of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (1642) starting on Monday.