On the Ridge Route
Artist
Emil Kosa Jr.
(1903 - 1968)
Datec. 1940
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions29 1/2 x 35 1/2 in. (74.9 x 90.2 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of the Hilbert Collection
Object number2019.296
DescriptionEmil Kosa Jr. was born in 1903 in Paris, France. As a child, he was tutored in art by his father and later attended the Prague Academy of Fine Art. After graduating in 1921, Kosa returned to America to join his family in Los Angeles. He studied at Chouinard School of Art, where he befriended Millard Sheets, who was there teaching classes in watercolor painting.In 1933, at the height of the Depression, Kosa started working as a scenic painter and special effects artist at 20th Century Fox in Hollywood. He designed the famous 20th Century-Fox "searchlight" logo and spent 35 years at Fox and other studios, retiring in 1969. Among his best-known matte scenes is the view of the harbor at ancient Alexandria in the 1963 film Cleopatra, for which he won an Academy Award for Special Effects, and the ruined Statue of Liberty at the end of the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes.
Kosa was a prolific painter in oils and watercolors. His works can be seen in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Santa Barbara Museum, the San Diego Museum, the Hilbert Museum and the Mormon Church, Salt Lake City, Utah. He died in Los Angeles in 1968.
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