Photo By Gail

In Sunday Morning (1940), artist Emil Kosa Jr. (1903 –1968) captures a quiet scene with people arriving at a little church in the California countryside. In wagons and on foot, they gather from all around, many coming down the hill from the houses we can see in the distant background.

As clouds darken above, the church glows in a golden light, with the trees seeming to hug their branches around it. A pathway lined with broken, haphazardly repaired fence rails leads your eye into the image; perhaps another symbolic reference. The bright greens and gold stand out sharply against the lowering sky.

Born in Paris, France, Kosa moved to California in 1927. Like many artists who found it hard to make a living during the Great Depression, Kosa found work in Hollywood’s movie studios. He joined 20th Century Fox in 1933 and was quickly promoted to art director in their special effects department, a position he held for 35 years. He won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on the movie Cleopatra in 1964.

Throughout his movie studio career, Kosa continued to paint scenes of every day life in California as he saw it unfold around him. The Hilbert collection includes many examples of his beautiful and evocative California scene paintings in both oil and watercolor.

Photographed at the Hilbert Museum in Orange, California.