Freya Parr
Artist Milein Cosman sketched some of the most iconic figures in 20th-century music, and now her portraits are heading to the Royal College of Music, writes Freya Parr
‘Milein Cosman’s portraits of 20th-century musical figures are a rare snapshot into their personalities. Her vast collection is a treat and an exciting acquisition for the Royal College of Music.’
It’s notoriously difficult to capture the movement of a musician in a static image. Not for Milein Cosman. The artist, who died last year, was a prolific portraitist of musicians, with drawings of Britten, Vaughan Williams and Copland to her name. The Royal College of Music Museum has acquired over 1,300 of Cosman’s sketches, including a major collection of 50 portraits of Stravinsky, most of which were drawn over a three-day period at the BBC’S Maida Vale studios. The Russian composer had come over in the late 1950s to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra. ‘She spent those three days in absolute bliss,’ says
Milein Cosman was able to gain access to rehearsals with leading musicians
Julian Hogg, a close friend of the Cosmans, and executor of their estate. ‘She was barely five-foot tall and loved drawing small people – Stravinsky was also very short.’
Few artists have had relationships with as many significant musical figures as Milein Cosman. Her husband Hans Keller was a musicologist, broadcaster and writer, and the pair were well known within creative circles in London. They were friends with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears and were invited to join them in Aldeburgh where Cosman drew them both, as well as composer Imogen Holst, Britten’s dachshunds and the caretaker’s parrot.
With the press passes she procured and an ever-bulging black book, Cosman was able to gain access to rehearsals with leading musicians and conductors. It was in these
intimate settings that she sketched the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Ashkenazy, as well as Leontyne Price, who was performing in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in the early 1950s and who took a shine to Cosman. Price thanked her for being ‘the first person to draw us [the cast, who were all African-american] and not completely blacken our faces.’
Performers were the perfect subjects for Cosman, as she was renowned for her ability to convey movement, and capture the personalities of the figures she drew – as well as musicians, she also sketched troops of Balinese dancers and circus clowns. In some drawings, she focuses on certain body parts such as the face or the arms and in others she examines the entire body and its posture.
‘What I really like about her work is that she drew very fast without even looking at what she was drawing,’ says Gabriele Rossi Rognoni, curator of the Royal College of Music Museum. ‘Her drawings actually bring out more of the subjects’ characters and personalities than a photograph would.’
The Royal College of Music has received the complete collection of Milein Cosman’s drawings of musical figures: composers, conductors and artists. Plans to digitise all 1,300 images are under way, and there
‘‘ Cosman was renowned for her ability to convey movement, and capture the personalities of the musicians ’’
has been a considerable amount of detective work to uncover the stories behind the sketches. Working alongside the archivist from the Cosman Trust and the artist’s biographer, the College hopes to be able to piece together the stories surrounding each drawing. Cosman and her husband wrote books together, including Stravinsky at Rehearsal (1962), combining her sketches with his words, which go some way to explaining the context of the pictures of Stravinsky. Other portaits, however, have been more difficult to place.
In documenting Cosman’s works, the Royal College of Music plans to develop their stories. ‘We imagine that people will come forward to share their own memories,’ says Rossi Rognoni. ‘The process could go on for years.’
It has already gone on for some time. Cosman took a sketchbook with her everywhere she went, sometimes having to draw on the back of cheques if she ran out of paper. This, combined with the fact that she sketched incredibly quickly, means there are huge quantities of drawings for the archivists to work through.
‘Prolific is an understatement’, laughs Julian Hogg. With some hidden in drawers and very few with a clear filing system, it has been a mammoth task to sift through them. ‘There’s been someone working part-time at her house for eight or nine years, but we’re still finding them in drawers and cupboards and goodness knows where.’ It’s not every day you find Rostropovich hiding in your sock drawer, but in Milein Cosman’s house in Hampstead such discoveries have become the norm. Now her unique heritage is to have a new home at the Royal College of Music Museum.
The Gift of Music: Cosman Collection, a concert celebrating this collection of drawings, will be held on 20 February 2019 at the Royal College of Music