{{Short description|German-born artist based in England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}} {{Infobox artist | name =Milein Cosman | image = | imagesize = | caption =Cosman drawing Peter Ustinov, Edinburgh Festival, 1947. | birth_name = Milein Cosman | birth_date = 31 March 1921 | birth_place = Gotha, Germany | death_date = 21 November 2017 (aged 96) | death_place = London, United Kingdom | field = Drawing, illustration | training = Slade School of Art | movement = | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = }} '''Emilie Cosman''', known as '''Milein Cosman''', (31 March 1921 – 21 November 2017) was a German-born British artist. She was best known for her graphic work of leading cultural figures, dancers and musicians in action, such as Francis Bacon, Mikhail Baryshnikov, T. S. Eliot, and Igor Stravinsky.

==Biography== Cosman was born in Gotha, Germany, in 1921, daughter of Hugo Cosmann (1879&ndash;1953). She spent most of her childhood in Düsseldorf. Because of her Jewish background and the rise of National Socialism, she went to school in Switzerland, at the Ecole d'Humanité and the International School of Geneva between 1937 and 1939. She came to England in 1939.<ref name="Spalding">{{cite book|author=Frances Spalding|author-link=Frances Spalding|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1990|title=20th Century Painters and Sculptors |isbn=1-85149-106-6}}</ref><ref name=DAberge>{{cite web |author=Dalya Alberge|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/01/milein-cosman-sketches-britten-stravinsky-bernstein|title=Huge cache of sketches captures Britten, Stravinsky and Bernstein at work |date=1 December 2018|accessdate=6 June 2019|work=The Observer}}</ref>

Between 1939 and 1942, Cosman studied at the Slade School of Art.<ref name="Spalding"/><ref name="BuckmanVol1"/> The Slade had relocated to Oxford from London during the war years. There Cosman studied drawing under Randolph Schwabe and lithography under Harold Jones.<ref name=Hopkinson>{{cite web |author=Amanda Hopkinson|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/dec/04/milein-cosman-obituary |title=Milein Cosman obituary |date=4 December 2017|accessdate=4 December 2017|work=The Guardian}}</ref><ref name="Ten">{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/ten-women-artists-of-jewish-heritage-represented-in-uk-collections|title=Ten women artists of Jewish heritage represented in UK collections|date=22 September 2020|author=Lydia Figes|website= Art UK|accessdate=28 September 2020}}</ref> In 1943, she attended evening classes at Oxford Polytechnic, where she was taught by Bernard Meninsky.<ref name=Hopkinson/> In the same year, she started teaching French and Art at a convent school as well as giving lectures on Art for the Workers' Educational Association (WEA).

In 1946, Cosman moved to London. She began book illustration and working as a freelance artist, while continuing to teach evening classes for the WEA and working for the American Broadcasting Station in Europe. She contributed drawings to national and international magazines and newspapers, including the BBC's ''Radio Times''.<ref name="BuckmanVol1">{{cite book|author=David Buckman|publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd|year=2006|title=Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L |isbn=0-953260-95-X}}</ref><ref name=Hopkinson/> Particularly noteworthy is a commission from ''Heute'' magazine to draw Konrad Adenauer's post-war cabinet in Germany 1949. These drawings were acquired by the German Government Art Collection in 2019 and their first public exhibition as a collection was opened at the German Bundestag in Berlin in April 2022.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bundestag.de/kunst#url=L2Jlc3VjaGUvYXVzc3RlbGx1bmdlbi9rdW5zdF9hdXNzdC9jb3NtYW4tODg2Njc2&mod=mod441922|title = Deutscher Bundestag - Kunst im Bundestag}}</ref>

In 1947, Cosman met the Viennese-born musician, writer, broadcaster and teacher Hans Keller (1919&ndash;1985), whom she married in 1961.<ref name="BuckmanVol1"/><ref name=Hopkinson/><ref name="Ten"/> Some books of his writings – ''The Jerusalem Diary'' (2001), ''Stravinsky The Music Maker'' (2010) and ''Britten'' (2013), for example – include many of her drawings and prints. Hans and Milein lived in Hampstead, where their friends included the artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky.

Milein Cosman made a series of schools programmes on drawing for ITV in 1958.<ref name=Hopkinson/> In all, she had nearly 30 solo exhibitions in the UK and abroad and her work has been acquired by many leading museums including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin.<ref name=Lebrecht>{{cite web |author=|url=https://www.lebrecht.co.uk/blog/?p=10788 |title=Milein Cosman obituary |year=2017|accessdate=4 December 2017|work=Music + Arts Pictures at Lebrecht}}</ref> She was renowned for drawing quickly, and much of her work was done from the wings or auditorium during rehearsals for concerts, theatrical and dance performances, capturing movement “in mid-flight” as Ernst Gombrich put it.

In 2006, Cosman founded the Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust, which aims to support young musicians and artists as well as publishing, exhibiting and archiving her own and Hans Keller’s work.<ref name=Hopkinson/> In 2014, a documentary film about Milein Cosman, directed by Christoph Böll, premiered in Düsseldorf in her presence.<ref name=Hopkinson/>

Cosman died in November 2017.<ref name=Lebrecht/> She bequeathed a set of over 1300 drawings to the Royal College of Music, London.<ref name=DAberge/><ref>{{cite web |title=Acquisitions of the month: December 2018 |url=https://www.apollo-magazine.com/acquisitions-of-the-month-december-2018/ |website=Apollo Magazine|date=11 January 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://museumcrush.org/milein-cosmans-portraits-of-musical-women/|title=Milein Cosman's portraits of musical women|author=Anna Maria Barry|date=7 March 2019|website=Museum Crush|accessdate=23 November 2020}}</ref> Before her death Cosman gave drawings, sketchbooks, etchings and oil paintings, The Milein Cosman Dancers Collection, to the Department of Music and Dance Studies at the University of Salzburg.<ref>{{Cite web|author=Brigitte Kirchgatterer|date=7 October 2017|title=Wenn Migration Musik verwandelt: Forschungsschwerpunkt "Musik und Migration" an der Universität Salzburg|url=https://www.uni-salzburg.at/fileadmin/multimedia/Kunst-%20Musik-%20und%20Tanzwissenschaft/images/sammlungen/UNokt17_8-9-16-2.pdf|website=Salzburger Nachrichten, p8|accessdate=8 December 2020}}</ref> A biography and comprehensive overview of Cosman's art by art historian Ines Schlenker was released in 2019.<ref>Ines Schlenker (2019). ''Milein Cosman. Capturing Time.'' Prestel: Munich, London, New York. Reviewed by Tom Fleming, "Portraits of a lady" (print title), {{cite web |title=The unsung art of Milein Cosman |url=https://www.apollo-magazine.com/milein-cosman-capturing-time-review/ |website=Apollo Magazine|date=22 July 2019 }}, vol. CXC nr. 677, July/August 2019.</ref>

Tate Archive holds the Milein Cosman Archive of more than 10,000 items, including most of her sketchbooks and thousands of drawings and prints, along with her personal and professional papers, diaries and photographs. A selection of these have been digitised.<ref>{{cite web |title=Personal and professional papers, artwork, correspondence and photographs of Milein Cosman |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/tga-20227/personal-and-professional-papers-artwork-correspondence-and-photographs-of-milein-cosman/ |website=Tate|access-date=29 May 2026}}</ref>

==Books produced or illustrated by Cosman== * Hans Keller and Donald Mitchell (eds) (with drawings by Cosman): ''Benjamin Britten: A Commentary on his Work from a Group of Specialists'' (London, Rockliff, 1952) * ''Musical Sketchbook'' (Bruno Cassirer, Oxford, 1957) * Neville Cardus (with drawings by Cosman): ''Composer's Eleven'' (London, 1958; {{ISBN|0-8369-1554-2}}) * (with Hans Keller): ''Stravinsky at Rehearsal'' (1962; published in Germany as ''Stravinsky Dirigiert'') * (with Hans Keller): ''1975 (1984 minus 9)'' (London, 1977) * (with Hans Keller): ''Stravinsky Seen and Heard'' (Toccata Press, 1982; {{ISBN|0-907689-02-7}}). Reissued as ''Stravinsky The Music Maker'' (ed. M. Anderson, Toccata Press, 2010) * (With Hans Keller): ''The Jerusalem Diary - Music, Society and Politics'', 1977 and 1979 (ed. C. Wintle & F. Williams, Plumbago Books, 2001, {{ISBN|0-9540123-0-5}}) * ''Lebenslinien/Lifelines'' (ed. Thomas B Schumann and Julian Hogg, Edition Memoria, Cologne, 2012, {{ISBN|978-3-930353-32-3}}) * (with Hans Keller): ''Britten'' London, Plumbago Books and Arts, 2013, {{ISBN|978-0-9566007-4-5}} (hardback), 978-0-95660075-2 (softback) * ''Milein Cosman: Capturing Time'' (Ines Schlenker, Prestel, Munich, 2019, {{ISBN| 978-3-7913-5797-3}} (hardback))

==Solo exhibitions== 1949: Berkeley Gardens, London

1957: Matthiessen Gallery, London

1968: City of London Festival

1969: Camden Arts Festival

1970: Theatre des Champs-Élysées (Festival International de Danse, British Council), 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 (centenary exhibition of works by Ilde Schrader and Milein Cosman, who were childhood friends)

2021: Hampstead School of Art, London

2022: Bundestag, Berlin (a joint exhibition including works from the art collection of the Akademie der Künste)

2022: Palais des Beaux Arts (Bozar), Brussels (permanent exhibition of drawings of musicians by Milein Cosman)

2022: Haus Hövener, Brilon (exhibition of works by Milein Cosman and Ilde Schrader)

2024: Stadtmuseum Bonn

2026: Hampstead School of Art, London

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{Art UK bio}} *[https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp59793/milein-cosman?search=sas&sText=milein+cosman Works in the National Portrait Gallery, London] *[https://museumcollections.rcm.ac.uk/collections/milein-cosman-collection/ Drawings of musicians at the Royal College of Music, London] *[https://www.cosmankellertrust.org/wigmore-hall-cosman-collection/ The Cosman Collection at the Wigmore Hall, London] *[https://artsandculture.google.com/story/MwXBNLCG7HIzKg?hl=en-GB} Musical portraits by Milein Cosman on Google Arts and Culture] *[https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ngVxJfnUtZmN_g Dancers by Milein Cosman on Google Arts and Culture] *[https://www.plus.ac.at/kunst-musik-und-tanzwissenschaft/abteilung-musik-und-tanzwissenschaft/die-abteilung/sammlungen-der-abteilung-musik-und-tanzwissenschaft/salzburg-music-and-migration-collections/dancers-collection-milein-cosman/ Collection Milein Cosman at the University of Salzburg] *[http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/search?module=ecatalogue&term=Milein%20cosman Works by Milein Cosman at the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210705201806/http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/search?module=ecatalogue&term=Milein%20cosman |date=5 July 2021 }} *[https://digital.adk.de/milein-cosman/ Milein Cosman at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin] *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzE5pDufG9g Exhibition at the German Bundestag of portraits from politics and art by Milein Cosman] *[https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/03/2008_08_wed.shtml Interview with Milein Cosman on BBC radio] *[https://www.cosmankellertrust.org/ The Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cosman, Milein}} Category:1921 births Category:2017 deaths Category:Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Category:British illustrators Category:German illustrators Category:British women illustrators Category:German women illustrators Category:Jewish German artists Category:Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Category:Tolkien artists Category:German expatriates in Switzerland Category:International School of Geneva alumni Category:Ecole d'Humanité alumni