Max Koch

Max Friedrich Koch (24 November 1859, Berlin – 18 February 1930, Sacrow, Potsdam) was a German history painter. Later as a 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 also explored photography in the late 1800s, publishing two art nude model study works in collotype. These works were posed and published according to artistic and academic criteria. The first, titled Freilicht (Heft I) [Open-Air (Vol. I)], was followed by Der Akt (Heft II) [The Nude (Vol. II)], the latter in collaboration with the architect and sculptor (1858–1911). Die Schönheit (The Beauty) was a monthly journal for art and life, published between 1903 and 1914 in Berlin, Leipzig, and Vienna, and again in Dresden from 1915 until 1932. The journal was elaborately designed in German Jugendstil (Art Nouveau), produced on art paper, and was one the first to include "culturally nude" life photographs by various past and present photographers. The Reich Court of Justice in Leipzig subsequently acquitted the journalist and publisher Karl Vanselow in two test cases in 1906 and 1909, ruling that "the representation of naked people for the purpose of publicity for Freikörperkultur (free body culture) is declared as not punishable".

Publications Photography Photography works and model studies in open air nature and studio, according to artistic and academia criteria "Freilicht" (Book I), by Professor Max Koch, published by Internationaler Kunstverlag M. Bauer & Co., Leipzig, ca. 1890s "Der Akt" (Book II) and in French publication "L'Act (La Modèle humaine)", by Professor Max Koch & Architect and Sculptor Otto Rieth, published by Internationaler Kunstverlag M. Bauer & Co., Leipzig, 1894

Selected works