Painter, drawing teacher
She was born in Szczecin, but has lived in Jelenia Góra from very young age. She came from a middle-incom family, her father was a medical oficer (Stabsarzt). During her early schooldays she has been living with her parents and brothers in rented apartment on Wolności 7 street (Warmbrunnstrasse) at crossroad Piłsudski and Groszowa. In Jelenia Góra she graduated school for girls (Höhere Tochterschule) on Piłsudski Street (Obere Schützenstrasse). During her last year of education Katrin Kosack has been living on Powstańców Wielkopolskich Street (Friedrichstrasse), in Cunnersdorf (since 1921 in Jelenia Góra’s borders).
She has received artistic education due to private drawing, painting and engraving lessons. She graduated a seminar for drawing teachers lead by Lette- Verein in Berlin, established by Wilhelm Adolf Lette in 1865 as a community supporting gainful work for women from middle class. At the turn of the century, in Berlin, she has been taught privately by Walter Leistikow (1865-1908) and Paul Vorgang (1860-1927). In 1909-1910 she continued her studies in Munich: painting by Melchior Kern and engraving techniques by Walter Ziegler (linocut, litography).
During the world war I she has been working as a drawing teacher in Jelenia Góra and in Werkenthin-Lyzeum in Cieplice, among her students was e.g. Günter Grundmann (1892-1976). Economic gloom, most of all inflation, limited her financial capacities as an unmarried artist. After war, except for artistic and scholastic activities, she has dealt with painting preservation, on Riesengebirgsverien’s (Związek Karkonoski) comission and with porcelain painting.
She painted not only in Karkonosze, but often traveled by artistic-studies causes. Before world war I she visited Petersburg, Heligoland Island, to lower Rheinland, and ever since the 1930, in summer or autumn, to East Prussia for a few weeks, where she found many her paintings’ purchasers.
Since the 1930s she has had her own atelier in Jelenia Góra placed in garden house formerly owned by Daniel v. Buchs (1707-1779)- a rich merchant trading fine flaxen veil. In accordance with address register from 1939, she ha also been living on Berndtenstrasse 12 (now Bolesław Chrobry Street).
She was a member of Stowarzyszenie Artystek in Leipzig. She took part in collective expositions in Berlin (Wielka Wystawa Sztuki, 1912), Wrocław (Śląskie Wystawy Sztuki: 1899, 1909, 1937, 1941, 1942, 1943), and in Stowarzyszenie Artystów św. Łukasza from Szklarska Poręba expositions organized in NMP Church in Jelenia Góra (now orthodox church) in 1920s and 1930s, thoughshe wasn’t a member of the association.
She died in 1945 in Jelenia Góra.
Her works were probably dissipated or destroyed during the world war II. In Muzeum Karkonoskie in Jelenia Góra’s collections are kept two of her landscapes of Karkonosze, one watercolour and seven drawings:
- Stawy w Śnieżnych Kotłach, oil, canvas, nr inw. MJG AH 4173;
- Złoty widok (Goldene Aussicht), oil, plywood, nr inw. MJG AH 6093;
- Wnętrze salonu, watercolour, nr inw. MJG AH 4091;
- Drawings presenting non-existent now fragments of Jelenia Góra’s main square’s yards, ink, pencil, nr inw. MJG AH 4266, MJG AH 4307, MJG AH 4392, MJG AH 4395, MJG AH 4396, MJG AH 4492, MJG AH 4493.
- In Muzeum Narodowe in Wrocław’s collections one of her watercolours Studnia renesanosowa w Karpnikach is kept, nr inw. MNWr VIII-1951.