Heinrich Koch

1896–1934

Heinrich (Jindrich) Koch graduated from secondary school in Uherské Hradiště, and in 1915 to 1918 studied law and art history at the University of Vienna. He then continued his education at the Academy of Art in Vienna, and studied sculpture under Jan Štursa at the Academy of Fine Art in Prague. In 1922, he apparently became the first Czech student at Bauhaus in Weimar, where he concentrated on architecture, advertisements, and interior design. He also began to apply himself to photography, which he studied under Hans Finsler at the School of Applied Art Giebichenstein near Halle. In 1929 he married Benita Koch, the head of the weaving department, and a former Bauhaus student whom he had met in Dessau several years before. In 1932, after Finsler left for Zurich, Koch became his successor, and fifteen months later he headed the department of photography at Giebichenstein. With the rise of the Nazis to power he was expelled and had to leave for Prague, together where in 1934 he was accepted as photographer at the National Museum. Shortly after he was killed in a traffic accident. The Museum of Decorative Arts organized an exhibition on his work in 1934, and the State Graphic Arts School issued a modest publication with reproductions of his photographs following the style of New Objectivity.