Karin Rehn-Kaufmann was born in Freiburg in 1957, and studied German philology and philosophy at the University of Freiburg after leaving school. She holds a diploma from the Eurythmische Hochschule in Stuttgart, where she was subsequently employed as a lecturer from 1982 to 1986. Furthermore, she graduated in Event Management from the Fernuniversität (Open University) Hagen and studied Mediation in Salzburg. After ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH, Salzburg, bought into Leica Camera AG in 2005, Rehn-Kaufmann’s long-standing passion for photography led to the opening of the Leica Gallery in Salzburg in 2008. She started with 5 Leica Galleries. Today she is the Art Director & Chief Representative of Leica Galleries International and holds management responsibility for the 25 Leica Galleries around the world. She has successfully curated a lot of prestigious exhibitions worldwide including, for instance, the Chinaflug project, an exhibition of spectacular aerial photography from the 1930s that was presented at the Chinese Embassy in Berlin, Photo Shanghai and other places. She was also responsible for the Leica Gallery exhibition concepts at photokina in 2012, 2014 and 2016, as well as the‘10x10’ exhibition on the occasion of the 100year jubilee of Leica photography, and ‘50 best for Leica’ – an exclusive collection of the most famous photographs taken by the prominent US Magnum photographer Elliot Erwitt. Since 2019 she is on top responsible for the Ernst Leitz Photo museum in Wetzlar.
Karin Rehn-Kaufmann has been a member of the jury of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award since 2008, and has played a significant role in the organisation and further development of the prestigious photography competition. For the 40. Celebration of this Award in 2020, she very successfully changed the system from a free submission to a nominated system.