The nude subject was a hallmark of ‘School of London’ painting and this work epitomises the mesmeric brushwork and psychological intensity which earned Kossoff a place as one of the pre-eminent London School painters, alongside his friend Frank Auerbach and his acquaintances Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. Because of American abstract art’s influence, however, it was not until the middle years of their careers that these artists began to win recognition. Fidelma in a Red Chair was painted at precisely the moment at which Kossoff and his peers were beginning to be understood and respected. It is against the background of a decisive change in fortunes that the painting’s confidence and fluency should be

understood.

Fidelma in a Red Chair is exceptional in Kossoff’s oeuvre. Most of his pictures were realised over long periods of sustained sittings, with the sitter holding the same pose as the artist endlessly painted, scraped away and re-painted it. Though the artist’s deep familiarity with the sitter undoubtedly made possible Fidelma in a Red

Chair, Kavanagh has recalled that this work ‘is the only painting I know of that was completed in one sitting. It was never scraped off like the rest, and I never took that “pose” again.’