Egon Kossuth 1874-1949

Born in 1874 in Opava, in the Duchy of Troppau, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Egon-Josef Kossuth began his training at the School of Applied Arts in Prague before continuing his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he was a student of Gabriel von Hackl and Franz von Stuck. It was under the guidance of these two major figures of the Munich art scene that he developed his own style, combining the rigor of academic teaching with a more spiritual symbolism.

A versatile artist with multiple talents, he devoted himself equally to history painting, portraiture, illustration, engraving, and photography, favoring expressive lines and vivid colors from the late 1890s onward. Shortly after 1900, Kossuth traveled throughout Europe, staying successively in England, France, Italy, and Spain, before settling in Wiesbaden and Prague, where he received significant commissions from the Austro-Hungarian high society. In addition to portraits of prominent figures, he painted several large religious decorations. Also active in the field of decorative arts, he created decidedly modern Jugendstil posters, notably for the first exhibition of handicrafts, commerce, art, and horticulture in Wiesbaden in 1909.

By 1914, with a solid reputation, he moved to Berlin, where he began a career as an official portraitist, successively immortalizing the emblematic figures of Emperor Wilhelm II and then the first Chancellor Friedrich Ebert.