In the 1950s, around the time Leon Kossoff was taking a class taught by David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic, he discovered the paintings of Chaim Soutine, who had died a decade earlier, in 1943. Perhaps it was their shared heritage—both were Eastern European Jews—or Soutine’s expressive use of paint, but the art stayed with young Kossoff. In affinity with his predecessor, he set out to create portraits, life drawings, and cityscapes that lifted the ordinary into a magical place. Featuring 40 important loans, this exhibition hangs Kossoff’s remarkable East End paintings alongside Soutine’s visions of human frailty. —Elena Clavarino