Milein Cosman facts for kids

Milein Cosman (born Emilie Cosman, 31 March 1921 – 21 November 2017) was a talented artist. She was born in Germany but lived most of her life in England.

Milein Cosman was famous for her drawings and prints. She often drew important cultural figures, dancers, and musicians. She was especially good at capturing them while they were performing or in action. Some of the famous people she drew include Francis Bacon, Mikhail Baryshnikov, T. S. Eliot, and Igor Stravinsky.

Milein Cosman's Life Story

Milein Cosman was born in Gotha, Germany, in 1921. She grew up mostly in Düsseldorf. Because she was Jewish and the Nazis were gaining power in Germany, she went to school in Switzerland. She studied at the Ecole d'Humanité and the International School of Geneva from 1937 to 1939. She moved to England in 1939.

From 1939 to 1942, Cosman studied at the Slade School of Art. This art school was in Oxford during World War II. There, she learned drawing from Randolph Schwabe and lithography (a type of printing) from Harold Jones. In 1943, she took evening classes at Oxford Polytechnic. She was taught by Bernard Meninsky. In the same year, she started teaching French and Art at a convent school. She also gave art lectures for the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), which taught adults.

In 1946, Cosman moved to London. She began illustrating books and working as a freelance artist. This means she worked for different clients instead of one company. She also kept teaching evening classes for the WEA. She drew for many national and international magazines and newspapers. One important job was for the BBC’s Radio Times.

A special project was when a magazine called Heute asked her to draw Konrad Adenauer's government leaders in Germany in 1949. These drawings were later bought by the German government for their art collection in 2019. They were shown to the public for the first time in Berlin in 2022.

In 1947, Cosman met Hans Keller, a musician, writer, and teacher from Vienna. They got married in 1961. Many of Hans Keller's books include Milein's drawings and prints. For example, The Jerusalem Diary (2001) and Stravinsky The Music Maker (2010) feature her artwork. They lived in Hampstead, London, and had many artist friends, like Marie-Louise von Motesiczky.

Milein Cosman also made a series of TV shows about drawing for schools on ITV in 1958. She had almost 30 solo art shows in the UK and other countries. Her artwork is now in many famous museums. These include the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. Her work is also in the Ashmolean Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.

She was known for drawing very quickly. Much of her work was done from the side of the stage or from the audience during rehearsals. She loved to capture movement "in mid-flight," as art historian Ernst Gombrich described it.

In 2006, Cosman started the Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust. This group helps young musicians and artists. It also works to publish, show, and keep her and Hans Keller’s work safe. In 2014, a documentary film about Milein Cosman was shown for the first time in Düsseldorf. She was there to see it.

Milein Cosman passed away in November 2017. She left over 1300 drawings to the Royal College of Music in London. Before she died, she also left drawings, sketchbooks, and paintings to the Department of Music and Dance Studies at the University of Salzburg. A book about her art by Ines Schlenker was published in 2019.

Books with Cosman's Art

Milein Cosman illustrated or helped create several books, often with her husband, Hans Keller. Here are a few examples:

• Hans Keller and Donald Mitchell (eds) (with drawings by Cosman): Benjamin Britten: A Commentary on his Work from a Group of Specialists (1952)
• Musical Sketchbook (1957)
• Neville Cardus (with drawings by Cosman): Composer's Eleven (1958)
• (with Hans Keller): Stravinsky at Rehearsal (1962)
• (with Hans Keller): Stravinsky Seen and Heard (1982)
• (With Hans Keller): The Jerusalem Diary - Music, Society and Politics (2001)
• Lebenslinien/Lifelines (2012)
• (with Hans Keller): Britten (2013)
• Milein Cosman: Capturing Time (by Ines Schlenker, 2019)

Solo Art Exhibitions

Milein Cosman had many art shows where only her work was displayed. Here are some of them:

• 1949: Berkeley Gardens, London
• 1957: Matthiessen Gallery, London
• 1968: City of London Festival
• 1969: Camden Arts Festival
• 1970: Theatre des Champs-Élysées, Paris
• 1974: Ryder Gallery, Los Angeles
• 1984: Yehudi Menuhin School, Surrey
• 1984: Dartington Hall, Devon
• 1988: Stadtmuseum, Düsseldorf
• 1990: Clare Hall, University of Cambridge
• 1996: Belgrave Gallery, London
• 2007: Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels
• 2008: Austrian Cultural Forum, London
• 2014: Hunterian Museum, Glasgow
• 2014: Kunstforum, Gotha
• 2015: Rathaus, Düsseldorf
• 2019: Clare Hall, University of Cambridge
• 2021: Stadtmuseum, Düsseldorf (a show with works by Milein Cosman and Ilde Schrader, who were friends as children)
• 2021: Royal College of Music, London (a permanent show of her drawings of musicians)
• 2021: Hampstead School of Art, London
• 2022: Bundestag, Berlin (a show that included works from the Akademie der Künste art collection)
• 2022: Palais des Beaux Arts (Bozar), Brussels (a permanent show of her drawings of musicians)
• 2022: Haus Hövener, Brilon (a show of works by Milein Cosman and Ilde Schrader)