Early Life, Family and Training Erwin Dom Osen was born in 1891 in Vienna, Austria, into a family defined by a Japanese father and an Austrian mother. This mixed heritage was quickly overshadowed by personal loss, as he was orphaned at an early age. His trajectory shifted toward the performing arts almost immediately; at age six, he entered the ballet school of the Vienna Court Opera. It was there that the director Gustav Mahler recognized a specific, innate gift for design within the young boy, a realization that would ultimately steer Osen away from the stage and toward the visual arts. H…