McCosh graduated from the School of Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in 1926 and began his teaching career there in 1931. In 1934 McCosh traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico to marry painter Anne Kutka in the company of his new in-laws, artists and art instructors Suzanne Kutka Boss and Homer Boss. Later that same year the couple relocated to Oregon. There he taught courses in lithography, drawing, oil painting and watercolors at the University of Oregon from 1934 through to his retirement in 1970.
List of notable life events
1922
Undergraduate at Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
1927
Spends the summer in Wyoming on a painting trip.
1928
Spent 8 months in Europe, including in Paris, France.
1930
Meets Anne Kutka in Oyster Bay, Long Island, with Bolton Brown.
1931
Rooms with Herber Ferber Silvers in New York City in the winter and spends the summer working in Grant Arnold’s lithography studio in Woodstock, New York.
1932
Art Institute of Chicago and Stone Colony.
1933
Stone Colony and Murals.
1934
Marries Anne (NM), moves to Eugene, OR; Feragil Gallery, Maynard Walker Gallery.
1936
Sagatuck, Michigan, with Francis Chapin, Art Institute of Chicago Summer School.
1937
Art Institute of Chicago summer school.
1938
Lewis and Clarke in Kelso, WA.
1940
National Parks murals, Washington, D.C.
1942
Spirit of Beresford mural, SD.
1947
Bozeman Montana summer teaching.
1949
Sabbatical: painting at Cohasset Beach, Washington, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and New Mexico.
1954
Full Professor
1956
Painting workshop in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
1957
Guest artist at San Jose State College, California, during the summer.
1958
Sabbatical: England, France, Italy, Morocco, and Spain.
1962
Illustrates Ernest G. Moll’s poem “The Lightless Ferry” for publication in The Rainbow Serpent and Other Poems.
1965
Sabbatical: New Mexico and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico City, and the Yucatan.
1970
Retires.
1977
Interview with David and Anne.
1981
Dies in Eugene, Oregon.
Following his death in 1981, his widow Anne Kutka McCosh donated over a thousand of his works and other art-related materials to the University of Oregon and the University's Art Museum. Included were personal letters, sketch books, and audio interviews with other artists. There was also a 1977 interview of the couple themselves. Some of this material was turned into an essay, The Making of David McCosh.[4] Other essays about McCosh include The Night Drawings of David McCosh,[5]Learning to Paint is Learning to See[6] and David McCosh / Entanglements.[7]
^Allen, Ginny (1999). Oregon Painters: The First Hundred Years (1859–1959). Portland, OR. ISBN978-0875952710.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^McCosh, David (2011). The making of David McCosh: Early paintings, drawings, and prints, July 23 – September 4, 2011. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon. ISBN978-0-87114-096-8. OCLC727610656.
^Saydack, Roger (2016). David McCosh: Learning to paint is learning to see: The McCosh exhibitions, 2005–2014. Jill Hartz, Danielle Knapp, David McCosh, Anne Kutka McCosh, Karin Clarke Gallery, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Eugene. ISBN978-0-9903533-7-9. OCLC1033412126.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)