John Koch, born in Toledo, Ohio in 1909, was an American realist best known for his paintings of fashionable Manhattan and New England mansion dwellers.

Koch's early art training was minimal. He attended two summers at the artists' colony at Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he was influenced by the work and theory of Charles Hawthorne. After graduating from high school, he went to Paris, where he stayed for four years painting on his own, never under a teacher. As he later recalled, "the Louvre taught me my major lessons."

At a time when the world seemed to turn its back on the realist tradition, Koch persisted and presented intimate views of his personal world. His paintings are populated with models, musicians, views of h...