Director, Essener Kunstmuseum 1909-1922, major exhibitor of German Expressionism. Between 1891 and 1896 Gosebruch studied philology in Munich, Geneva and Berlin. He taught as a private tutor until 1903 when he joined the the Essen museum as an unpaid assistant. During the same time he studied art history in Paris and Berlin, the latter venue under Heinrich Wölfflin. After a second undergraduate degree in art history in 1906, he was appointed in 1909 Director of Essen art museums, a diverse art collection.

Scholar of the Italian Renaissance and modern art. Gosebruch's father, Ernst Gosebruch, was an art historian and Museum director in Essen at the time of his son's birth. The younger Gosebruch grew up with the paintings of the Brücke artists, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Eric Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in the living room of the family home. The elder Gosebruch was dismissed as director of the Essener Museum Folkwang in 1933 by the Nazis. In 1938 Martin was conscripted to the Reich Labor Service (Arbeits-, Wehr-, Kriegsdienst Gefangenschaft).