Max Koch

Max Friedrich Koch (24 November 1859, Berlin – 18 February 1930, Sacrow, Potsdam) was a German history painter. Later as professor he taught art at the Unterrichtsanstalt des Kunstgewerbemuseums Berlin; head of the academic master's studio for monumental painting, theatrical and decorative painting. Koch not only painted, but explored photography in the late 1800s and published two art nude model study works in collotype, posed and published according to artistic and academia criteria, titled Freilicht (Heft I) and in collaboration with the architect and sculptor (1858–1911) Der Akt (Heft II). The art nudes by Koch became known to every artist and art student of that time period, who as a history painter had also achieved a name in wider art circles. Biography Koch came from a family of artists where he received his first learning in painting. His father, , and older brother Georg, were both painters. The three of them often worked together on large commissions and occasionally collaborated with the maritime artist Hans Bohrdt. His younger brother, Friedrich, was a composer and music teacher. Koch attended the , where he was a student of professor and formative of professor . Koch would later be described as a Schaller-student in everything, but would moreover surpass his master; Koch was much more generous, gripping and powerful in his monumental painting, and even more sensitive and intimate in his small-scale painting. From 1876 to 1877, Koch undertook a study trip to Italy, with the help of a scholarship, and completed his studies upon returning to Berlin. Beginning in 1879, Koch worked with Friedrich von Thiersch, decorating the Alte Oper concert hall in Frankfurt am Main. The year 1881 found him in Paris, at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, working with Pierre-Victor Galland.