"Born: Paris, France.... In the '20s, he moved to California, but returned to France several times to continue his art education. He received traditional painting instruction from Pierre Laurens and studied non-objective painting with Frank Kupka. After settling in California in 1928, he worked as a mural artist and operated a business with his father that produced decorative art for churches and auditoriums... In the early '30s, Kosa became friends with Millard Sheets and with Sheet’s encouragement, began aggressively pursuing a national reputation as a California watercolor artist ... To support his family, Kosa worked as a scenic artist in the special effects division at Twentieth Century-Fox Studios for 35 years. He produced art for matte shots and was known as a top artist in this field. The motion picture industry acknowledged his contributions and awarded him an Oscar for his special effects work for Cleopatra. A compulsive painter, Kosa would often paint for 3 or 4 hours after dinner each night and spend most of his weekends outdoors, painting with watercolors or oils... Best known for his representational watercolors and oils, but also won awards for pencil drawings and pastels depicting figurative subjects and prints. Biography courtesy of California Watercolors 1850-1970 http://www.californiawatercolor.com/pages/emil-kosa-jr-biography "Although he only started receiving credit in 1958, Emil Kosa Jr. was a matte artist at 20th Century-Fox for thirty-five years and was responsible for the painting of the famous 20th Century-Fox "searchlight" logo, a variation of which was originally done by Kosa in 1933 for 20th Century Pictures before they merged with Fox Film Corporation in 1935. A matte artist in the 20th Century-Fox special effects department from 1958 to 1969. His most famous matte painting is probably the ruined Statue of Liberty at the finale of Planet of the Apes (1968)." http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0466884/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm#trivia undefined

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