Dorothea Van der Koelen
Born in Darmstadt on 6 April 1960, Dorothea van der Koelen grew up in Mainz in a family guided by strong humanistic values. Immediately after graduating from the Rabanus-Maurus-Gymnasium in Mainz (1979), she opened her first gallery and organised her debut exhibition. The presentation of Polish artist Andrzej Pollo (1981) marked the beginning of her long and successful career in international contemporary art.
As a gallerist and curator, Dorothea van der Koelen has conceived or co-supervised nearly 600 exhibitionsworldwide, across Europe, Canada, the USA, Australia, the UAE, China, Japan, Nepal, Korea and Egypt. In 1989 she opened a second gallery in Mainz (Halle Dammweg). Alongside her professional work, she studied art history, philosophy, book science, logic and Romance philology at Gutenberg University in Mainz, earning her PhD in 1993.
Since 1982 she has been a member of the Federal Association of German Galleries and has published numerous essays on contemporary art in museum catalogues, journals and books since 1985. In 1995, together with her brother Martin van der Koelen, she founded Chorus Verlag für Kunst und Wissenschaft, a publishing house that has produced more than 160 scholarly publications.
In 2001, van der Koelen opened La Galleria in Venice, a branch of her Mainz gallery, which continues to enrich the city with high-profile exhibitions. A year later she established the Van der Koelen Foundation for Art and Science, dedicated to supporting emerging artists and fostering intercultural dialogue through lectures, exhibitions, and scholarships.
Since 2006 she has served on the Advisory Board of Art Karlsruhe, while also leading numerous art-in-architectureprojects in collaboration with artists, architects and entrepreneurs. In 2009 she celebrated the 30th anniversary of her gallery and founded Dr. van der Koelen Consulting, advising museums and companies on exhibition planning, collection development, and art marketing.
In 2014, 35 years after her first gallery opening, she realised one of her greatest ambitions by founding the Centre for Art and Science Ca’ D’Oro (CaDoro) in Mainz.
In recognition of her lifetime contribution to the arts, she received the Max Slevogt Medal of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate in December 2015 – the state’s highest honour for artists and patrons. In 2017 she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Rhineland-Palatinate Cultural Foundation, and in 2019 she was awarded the Gutenberg Statuette for her cultural commitment to Mainz, joining the city’s Advisory Council for the Arts.
