Rudolf Koppitz was born into a rural Protestant family in Schreiberseifen, in the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia (in what is today Skrbovice, part of Široká Niva near Bruntál in the Czech Republic).

Photographs from this period are laden with dramatic sentiments due to Koppitz's use of light, the sun, clouds and mist to express the emotions of the people and the time.

In the year they married, Rudolf made, probably in collaboration with Anna, the nude self-portrait, In the Bosom of Nature, in which he is framed by tree trunks, rocks, snowy mountains.

Julia Secklehner[14] identifies it, and Koppitz's 'self-portrait' nude In the Bosom of Nature as adhering to the Körperkult ('cult of the body') and the naturist heimat sentiment in its alpine setting and heroic low-angle viewpoint.

The FiFo ("Internationale Ausstellung des Deutschen Werkbundes – Film und Foto") came to Vienna after being shown in Stuttgart and decisively influenced the Koppitz couple's artistic development.

The Neues Sehen (New Vision) led them to a more factual and documentary oriented photography of themes from rustic life; ethnographic records of the peasant archetype, eulogised as the archaic essence of Germanic peoples, at first mystical and quasi-theosophical, but progressively more chauvinist and nationalistic under the Austrian chancellor dictatorship initiated by Engelbert Dollfuss of 1933.

Here one can see a graphic strength and compositional clarity that reflects the modernist ambitions initiated in the fine as in the applied arts by the Secession and by the Wiener Werkstätte.

But what gives the image its power is the aura of mystery, of symbolist sensuality that resonates through this enigmatic grouping of the three uniformly coiffed and draped figures and the one single naked figure.Bewegungsstudie's languid nude, elaborately robed women and sensuality,[17] in the context of its rigorous and artistic composition, evokes the sexual morbidity of Viennese artists like Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha, as well as the Swiss symbolist painter Ferdinand Hodler and has made it notable[18] It has become Koppitz's signature image and also his best-seller.

[13] Koppitz's work, much of it using the gum bichromate process, reflected his links with modern artists such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, and their involvement with the 'life reform' movement including; nudism, sun culture, and expressive dance[17] popular in Central Europe from the early 1900s as well as agrarian romanticism.

[10] Koppitz's mastery of pictorial processes—pigment, carbon, gum, and bromoil process of transfer printing—gained the respect of his colleagues throughout the world and garnered mention in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1929.

This highly regarded annual exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art featured not only prominent American photographers, but also the Europeans including; Koppitz, Josef Sudek, Jaromir Funke, Frantisek Drtikol, and Madame D'Ora.