Rudolf Kosow

Film Still #5 (Clint Eastwood, portrait, western movie, cowboy, Hat)

2025

Like images from a dream, Rudolf Kosow’s Surrealist figurative and still-life paintings and drawings conjure into reality otherworldly and absurdist scenes.

Kosow was born in 1972 in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. From 1994 to 2000, he studied painting at the city’s State Academy of Fine Arts.

Now based in Germany, he divides his time between Stuttgart and the town of Laichingen. He creates oil paintings based on three subjects: humans, animals and landscapes. He invites the viewer to interpret each work’s enigmatic message. For instance, in Contact, an astronaut is seemingly unaware of a colossal cat’s peering eye. In Missing Pieces, Kosow depicts a couple considering the whereabouts of slices taken from a giant Black Forest cake.

Kosow also explores the nature of human relationships in his portraits, such as Couple and Discord. Capture features a large-scale image of a sleeping girl juxtaposed with a miniature soldier standing guard. 

“I try to paint things as realistically and as close as possible to enhance the real impression,” Kosow says in his artist’s statement. Although the imagery in his paintings and figurative drawings can be strange and somewhat unsettling, Kosow’s unique interplay of light and shadow creates a sense of “calm, harmony and peace.” 

Kosow has exhibited across Germany and France. His works are sought by collectors of 21st-century Surrealist art.

On 1stDibs, find a range of Rudolf Kosow’s paintings, drawings and more.