A ward in a London hospital No. 1 is a dramatic gouache painting that addresses Leon Kossoff’s definitive themes of mortality and human suffering. The scene likely depicts the interior of old Charing Cross Hospital. An elevated perspective affords a foreshortened view of a hospital ward. Two rows of beds and three standing figures are tightly compressed into the narrow format of the picture, and the dense construction of the composition creates a claustrophobic atmosphere. The support is constructed from two sheets of paper, and it is plausible that the right-hand section was begun before the left-hand section became necessary and was added. It seems telling that the left-hand sheet includes a compositional grouping distinct from the other sheet, with the width of the supplementary sheet filled by a recumbent figure lying on a bed in the foreground. A pictorial focal point is provided by the stooped figure standing in the linoleum-floored aisle. His face was painted wet-on-wet in two tones of red, the lighter used for the flesh tones and the darker for the eyes, nose and mouth, which are simply marked out but gaunt and expressive nevertheless.

This and other contemporaneous gouaches differ from Kossoff’s oil paintings of the period, in which isolated figures and their surroundings were evoked in thickly applied and heavily worked paint. The water-based medium of gouache and the paper support used for A ward in a London hospital No. 1 prevented the same degree of vigorous re-working, though the same energy and force of execution are apparent. Thick outlines in dark colours define the features of the patients and their beds. The dominant colours of this gouache are ultramarine blue and pale flesh pink, the brilliance of which lends warmth and light to the otherwise sorrowful atmosphere of the picture.

This gouache was made by Kossoff around the time that he suffered an appendicitis. He was admitted to the old Charing Cross Hospital and evidently passed his convalescence studying the mortal atmosphere of his surroundings. A number of works relate to this experience, all of which were presumably made after he was discharged from hospital. Another gouache of the same title and date, A ward in a London hospital No. 2, also depicts a hospital ward with two rows of beds and standing figures moving around the darkened space, though in contrast it uses a vertical format. Both works are distinctive for their narrow rectangular shape, which crops the composition and exaggerates the emphasis created by the parallel rows of beds. All of Kossoff’s hospital ward works have a subdued atmosphere akin to Henry Moore’s wartime shelter drawings (fig. 1). In both cases, two parallel rows of recumbent figures carry overtones of a mortuary.

This gouache was included in Kossoff’s only solo exhibition at Marlborough Fine Art, held in April 1968. Kossoff found his way to the Marlborough like many of those artists who were represented by Helen Lessore at the Beaux Arts Gallery until its closure in 1965. His friends and contemporaries Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach and Craigie Aitchison followed the same path, though Auerbach was the only artist who remained there for a considerable time. Kossoff’s exhibition included only two gouaches, the two depictions of a London hospital ward (nos. 36 and 37). These works relate to two paintings in the exhibition, Woman ill in bed surrounded by family (no. 12) (fig. 2) and Man ill in bed (1967, Private Collection). The Tate’s work relates to a period in which both the artist’s wife and his sister-in-law were ill. Though neither of these two other works depict hospital subjects, they nevertheless demonstrate the artist’s preoccupation with human frailty and emotional climaxes in everyday life. Beside these works, Kossoff’s Marlborough exhibition was largely composed of figure subjects, building sites, and the railway landscape around Kings Cross.