Personal and professional papers, artwork, correspondence and photographs of Milein Cosman
1890s–2010s
Milein Cosman (1921–2017) was a German artist who spent her adult life in Britain. Born Emilie Else Cosmann into a Jewish family in Düsseldorf, she was sent to Switzerland in 1937 for her education as antisemitism intensified. After her family home was attacked during Kristallnacht in 1938 and her parents fled to Amsterdam, she moved to London in 1939 to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, arriving six weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War. The Slade relocated to Oxford during the war, and there she studied painting, drawing and lithography, winning first prize in 1940 for her lithograph Flight. During this period she formed lasting friendships with writers and artists, including Iris Murdoch and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. In 1945 she settled in Hampstead, where she lived for the rest of her life. A 1947 commission to draw the first Edinburgh Festival led to her meeting the musician and musicologist Hans Keller; they married and remained together until his death in 1985.
Cosman became part of a vibrant émigré cultural community, and was widely commissioned to produce drawings for publications and broadcasters including The Radio Times, Financial Times, The Times, LIFE and others. She also created books, designed covers and exhibited extensively. Known best for her drawings of musicians, artists and performers, Milein Cosman would draw people, often unseen, from the wings of a rehearsal, during performances, on city streets and during commissions. This material has been selected to offer a broad picture of Cosman's prolific artistic output, as well as an insight into her wide social circle, including close friendships with Kyffin Williams, Ernst Gombrich, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, and John Heartfield.
This archive was catalogued and digitised thanks to a generous grant from The Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust. Translations courtesy of Jonathan Blower.
- Collection Owner
- Milein Cosman 1921 – 2017
- Collection
- Tate Archive
- Acquisition
- Presented by the Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust, 2021
- Reference
- TGA 20227
260 objects in this collection
- Title
- Associated-Rediffusion Limited
- Date
- 1958
- Description
- Papers, draft, reherasal and final scripts, and notes concerning the educational television show Black and White produced by Associated-Rediffusion Limited. The programmes were aimed at children.
In 1958 Milein Cosman presented 8 episodes of Black and White on Friday afternoons. Each episode was about art. During the episodes Cosman was joined by guests including David Low, Kyffin Williams, Joan Benesh, Frederick Gibberd, Victor Pasmore and others. Black and White was directed by June Neville, Fernau Hall was the Education Officer, Research and Stage Management was by David Giffard and Production Assistant was Mary Bailey.
The scripts were written by Louis Marks. Each script is annotated suggesting Cosman may have helped with corrections, editing and rewriting the scripts. - Reference
- TGA 20227/3/3
