John Koch Painter USA 1909–1978

John Koch (1909–1978) was born in Toledo, Ohio on August 18, 1909 and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He briefly studied charcoal drawing in his late teens and early twenties, which was his only real period of formal art study. He also spent a few summers in Provincetown, MA and attended lectures by Charles Hawthorne, who was teaching there at that time.
Koch went to Paris at age of nineteen and stayed for five years, studying independently and supporting himself by drawing commissioned portraits. In 1929, his work was exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries and Salon du Printemp. He returned to New York City five years later, where he lived out the rest of his life. In the year 1935, he married Dora Zaslavky and had his first New York exhibition at Valentine Dudensing Gallery. In 1939, he signed on with Charles W. Kraushaar Gallery, where his first show sold out. He exhibited there many times throughout his career. His work was also acquired then by the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 1940 he was in a group show at the Whitney Museum titled “Forty Under Forty,” and the 51st Annual Exhibition of the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1942–5 he joined the United Service Organizations (USO) in the art sketching and portrait division in veterans hospitals.
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