Magdalena Droste was born in 1948 in Eschweiler, Germany. She studied art history and literature in Aachen and Marburg. She completed her studies in Marburg in 1977 with a doctorate in The Fresco as Idea. From 1977-79, she worked at the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie and the Lenbachhaus in Munich. She has worked at the Bauhau Archiv in Berlin since 1980, organizing numerous exhibitions and producing publications on Bauhaus artists, including Herbert Bayer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Hannes Meyer, Georg Muche and Gunta Stölzl. She has also written a number of essays on the furniture and textile workshops at the Bauhaus and on arts and crafts as a womans profession.