1. John Koch, was an American painter and teacher, and an important figure in 20th century Realism.
23 Facts About John Koch
1. 2.
John Koch is best known for his light-filled paintings of urban interiors, often featuring classical allusions, many set in his own Manhattan apartment.
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John Koch's works are in the collections of prominent American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and many others.
4.
John Koch was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Marian Joan and Edward John Koch, and grew up mostly in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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John Koch moved to New York City in 1928, where he met and became friends with Dora Zaslavsky, a talented piano teacher, four years his senior.
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John Koch moved to Paris, where he spent five years studying on his own, copying paintings at the Louvre and other museums, and supporting himself by painting portraits.
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John Koch returned to New York City in 1934, where Zaslavsky was teaching at the Manhattan School of Music and waiting for her divorce to be finalized.
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John Koch was drafted into the US Army in 1943, but wound up doing alternative service in New York veterans hospitals.
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John Koch painted individual portraits of his father, and featured him in several of the group portraits.
10.
John Koch suffered a stroke in 1975, that paralyzed his right hand and forced him to use a wheelchair.
11.
John Koch recovered some use of his hand, but died in 1978, following a second stroke.
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John Koch has developed a soft and luminous style of underpainting in egg tempera and glazing with misty oils to create a cool and ingratiating effect vaguely reminiscent of the seventeenth-century Dutch master Vermeer.
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John Koch stands at the bar, self-consciously reflected in a mirror as he pours one of his famous martinis; Dora bends forward to attend to the seated music critic Noel Strauss.
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Nonetheless, John Koch thought it was a fine placement for a Tiepolo such as this one, and so here it is.
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Also semi-obscured by the glare is John Koch standing at his easel, gazing intently at Ulmer.
16.
John Koch was an occasional sculptor, and modeled Prometheus and Hercules, a work depicting Hercules wrestling with the eagle to rescue the chained Prometheus.
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John Koch exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1939 to 1945, and in 1952 and 1962.
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John Koch first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1948, and was awarded its Altman Prize in 1959 and 1964, its Saltus Medal in 1962, its Morse Medal in 1968, and its Engle Prize in 1972.
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John Koch was elected an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1953, and an Academician in 1954.
20.
John Koch was awarded the National Arts Club's 1963 gold medal, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1970.
21.
John Koch was one of six American Realist painters depicted in Raphael Soyer's 1962 group portrait, Homage to Thomas Eakins.
22.
That painting and Soyer's 1965 study of John Koch are at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
23.
John Koch's papers are at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art, for which he recorded a 1968 oral history.