Hugo Kotschenreiter, born in Hof in 1854, initially studied architecture at the Nuremberg School of Applied Arts from 1869 to 1871. But in 1872 he moved to the Munich Academy, to study painting until 1880. His teachers were the history painters Alexander von Wagner and Karl von Piloty.

From 1875 on Kotschenreiter often exhibited in the Munich Glaspalast. He also took part in exhibitions in Berlin and Vienna. He became famous for his depictions of the Upper Bavarian folk life that he was able to charge humorously. He also created interiors and character studies in cultured virtuoso coloring, which he never showed publicly during his lifetime. Kotschenreiter died in 1908.