Expressionist Sporting Painting |Cocks Fighting (c.1965) — After Leon Kossoff

Expressionist British Painting | “Cocks Fighting” (c.1965) — After Leon Kossoff | Original Oil by B.K. Gallie

🎨 Subject & Medium

A powerful mid-20th-century Expressionist sporting oil painting on board, circa 1965, titled Cocks Fighting, by B.K. Gallie of Gloucestershire (labelled verso).

Two roosters collide in a flurry of motion and colour — a timeless emblem of rivalry, vitality, and raw strength. Executed in thick impasto oils on Daler Board (England), the surface is richly sculptural, alive with palette-knife gestures and sweeping, confident strokes.

The work embodies the spirit of British Expressionism and the post-war School of London, echoing the emotional and physical intensity found in the paintings of Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach.

🖌️ Composition & Technique

• Heavy impasto, sculptural surface: Gallie handles paint like clay, modelling form through dense layers that catch and reflect light — every ridge and groove alive with energy.

• Expressive over representational: Anatomy yields to emotion. The brushwork conveys tension, rhythm, and vitality rather than literal form — an abstraction driven by instinct and feeling.

• Restricted, dynamic palette: A subdued grey ground offsets the fierce reds and yellows of the combs, dramatizing the clash and motion.

• Convulsive rhythm: The turbulent strokes mirror the subject’s ferocity — the paint itself seems to fight, pulse, and breathe.

👨🎨 Context: Leon Kossoff (1926–2019)

A key figure of the School of London, Leon Kossoff was renowned for his emotionally charged paintings and thick, tactile impasto surfaces. Alongside Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Frank Auerbach, he redefined post-war British figurative art.

Kossoff’s works, held by major institutions including Tate, MoMA, and LACMA, explore the tension between perception and emotion. Gallie’s Cocks Fighting reflects this influence — a dialogue between physical struggle and painterly gesture.

🖊️ Signature & Label

While unsigned, the painting bears the artist’s printed label verso, reading:
“B.K. Gallie, Honeysuckle Cottage, Uley, Dursley, Glos.”

This label confirms authorship, origin, and provenance, along with the original pre-decimal price (£8 8s) — securely dating the work to the early–mid 1960s.

🖼️ Framing

Housed in a newly fitted Larson-Juhl gilt moulded frame with museum-quality AR70 protective glass, complementing its bold mid-century presence.

Framed Dimensions:
Height: 58.5 cm × Width: 68 cm × Depth: 2.5 cm

🪶 Provenance

• Artist’s own label verso (Honeysuckle Cottage, Uley, Gloucestershire)

• Painted on Daler artist board, made by Daler Mountboards, Wareham, Dorset

• Acquired from a reputable dealer in the Eastern Shires

• Curated by Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD, specialists in British modernism

• Exhibited: Famous Lord Hill Museum – Post-War British Expressionism survey

• Later held in a private Gloucestershire collection

A clear, traceable provenance linking artist, region, materials, and exhibition history — reinforcing authenticity and cultural importance.

💖 Why Collect This Work

✅ Expressive energy: Every inch vibrates with movement and emotion.
✅ Tactile impasto: Paint that invites touch and rewards close viewing.
✅ Art-historical resonance: A vivid echo of Kossoff and the School of London.
✅ Striking décor piece: A commanding centrepiece for any collection or interior.

A visceral, poetic example of British post-war expressionism at its most alive and physical.

🧾 Condition

Good overall vintage condition. Stable paint layers, light craquelure typical of age. Minor wear to frame edges, structurally sound and display-ready.
Please review all images for accuracy and detail.