Lunchtime Lecture: Milein Cosman: Capturing Time

Amadeus Quartet (Norbert Brainin; Siegmund Nissel; Peter Schidlof; Martin Lovett) by Milein Cosman, pen and ink, 1960s. © Milein Cosman Trust/ National Portrait Gallery, London

Ondaatje Wing Theatre, Floor 2, National Portrait Gallery

Art historian Ines Schlenker introduces the life and varied oeuvre of Milein Cosman (1921–2017). Best known for her drawings of musicians and dancers, she excelled at chronicling contemporary life, developing a unique drawing technique that enabled her to capture the most fleeting of moments. Born into a Jewish family in Germany and educated in Britain during the Second World War, Cosman’s art is among the finest and most representative of her time, though still little known to a wider public. Ceaselessly sketching, she created a pictorial who’s who of the cultural elite from the second half of the twentieth century.