Eleonore Koch

Eleonore Koch, also known as Lore Koch, was a German-born Brazilian painter and sculptor. Born in Berlin in 1926, she arrived in São Paulo with her family in 1936, fleeing Nazi persecution. She is remembered for paintings that evoke the memory of everyday objects and for exploring the sensory nature of painting through a tension between color planes and line.

Her training was irregular. After leaving the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes early, she studied privately with artists including Yolanda Mohalyi, Elisabeth Nobiling, Samson Flexor and Bruno Giorgi. In 1949 she moved to Paris, where she worked with Árpád Szenes and Robert Coutin. On returning to São Paulo in 1952, she worked as a set designer for the Tupi television station and as an assistant to the scientists Mário Schenberg and César Lattes at the University of São Paulo.

Between 1953 and 1956 she studied under Alfredo Volpi, whose influence was decisive and who led her to shift from sculpture to painting. She exhibited at the São Paulo International Biennial from 1959 to 1967. In 1968 she moved to London, where she lived for two decades with the support of the collector Alistair McAlpine and, according to the sources, worked as a translator for Scotland Yard. She returned to Brazil in 1989, and her landscapes and colors then came to play a larger role in her art.

She was little known to the general public, though recognized in artists' circles. Her work drew wider attention in 2013, with a book published by Cosac Naify and text by Paulo Venancio Filho.