Jürgen Gottschalk holds degrees in art history, Italian literature and German philology from the Technische Universitat Dresden and the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples.

After teaching art education at the Institut fur Bildung und Beruf in Dresden, he went on to teach German at a number of training centres and higher education establishments in Paris and the Ile-de-France region (Sciences Po Paris, École du Louvre, Centrale Supelec). In the course of his career, he has worked for a number of institutions as a scientific assistant, and collaborated on the design of the exhibition Le Triomphe de Bacchus. Masterpieces of Ferrarese Painting in Dresden 1480-1620 and its catalogue at the Dresden Museum of Fine Arts.