Emil Kosa Jr. was born in Paris, France. His parents were Emil Kosa Sr., Czech artist, and Jeanne Mares Kosa, a French pianist for the
Paris Opera. After his mother died at the age of three, the family moved to Bohemia and his father married a Czech wife. Except of 1908, when the family moved temporarily to
Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where his father worked with
Alphonse Mucha. Four years later, the family returned to Bohemia where he attended the primary and secondary school during and after the World War I. After World War I ended, Kosa Jr. trained in art at the
Academy of Fine Arts, Prague. After a mere three semesters, he moved to the United States in January 1921, rejoining his family (which had preceded him in emigrating to the United States). He took art courses at the
California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. In 1927, he became a
naturalized American citizen. He spent the following year in Paris, studying at the
École des Beaux Arts and with Pierre Laurens and
Frank Kupka, and returned to California in 1928. ==Career==