Koppitz, Rudolf (1884-1936), Austrian pictorialist photographer and teacher, who studied and taught at Vienna's important Graphische Lehr-und Versuchsanstalt. During the First World War he served in aerial reconnaissance. His work, much of it using the gum bichromate process, reflects his links with modern artists such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, involvement with the ‘life reform’ movement (nudism, sun culture, expressive dance) popular in Central Europe from the 1900s, and agrarian romanticism. The figures in his celebrated Movement Study (1926; a nude and three robed dancers) and the nude self-portrait In the Bosom of Nature (1923), in which the half-recumbent artist is framed by tree trunks, rocks, and snowy mountains, are posed to convey a dreamlike harmony reminiscent of Symbolist painting and graphic art. In Koppitz's lifetime his work was exhibited in Europe, America, and Japan.
— Robin Lenman
Bibliography
- Faber, M. (ed.), Rudolf Koppitz, 1884-1936 (1995)
