Dr. Petra Hölscher studied art history, romance languages, German literature and industrial anthropology at Christian-Albrechts-University, in Kiel. In 1999 she first worked at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (State Art Collections Dresden), before moving to Munich to join Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser Gärten und Seen (State Department for Bavaria’s Castles, Parks and Lakes). In Dresden she was responsible for the main exhibition Jugendstil in Dresden. Aufbruch in die Moderne, at the Castle in 1999, and in Munich for the exhibition Pracht und Zeremoniell. Die Möbel der Residenz München, at the Munich Residence in 2002. In November 2002 she assumed her current position as a curator—since 2007 senior curator—at Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum (website: www.die-neue-sammlung.de). In this position she did and still does create exhibitions about international industrial design and studio jewelry which is always accompanied by a publication—Anton Cepka, Thomas Gentille, Tone Vigeland, Jablonec ’68, and not least Therese Hilbert. She has also written and co-authored numerous articles and books. She is also responsible for the museum's acquisitions in both fields. In 2005–2019 she gave lectures on design history at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University; 2009–2011 she was also asked by the Georg-Simon-Ohm-Hochschule in Nuremberg to teach. In 2020 she published Schmuck – Jewelry, the first publication about the jewelry collections for which Die Neue Sammlung is responsible and which are situated at Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.
