Karin Rehn-Kaufmann

Art Director & Chief Representative Leica Galleries International (Austria)

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann studied German Philology and Philosophy at the University of Freiburg. She also holds a diploma from the Eurythmische Hochschule in Stuttgart, where she was subsequently employed as a lecturer from 1982 to 1986.

After ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH, Salzburg, bought into Leica Camera AG in 2005, her long-standing passion for photography led to the opening of the Leica Gallery in Salzburg in 2008. Today, Rehn-Kaufmann is Art Director and Chief Representative of Leica Galleries International and holds management responsibility for the total of 28 Leica Galleries around the world. She has successfully curated numerous prestigious exhibitions including, the “Chinaflug” project, an exhibition showing spectacular aerial photography of China from the 1930s, exhibition concepts for the Leica Gallery at Photokina in 2012, 2014 and 2016, and the “10x10” exhibition on occasion of the “100 years of Leica photography” jubilee. She is responsible for the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar and curated exhibitions of photographers Werner Bischof, Josef Koudelka, Steve McCurry, Thomas Hoepker and Andy Summers, among others.

Rehn-Kaufmann has been a member of the jury of the Leica Oskar Barnack Awards since 2008, and has played a significant role in the organisation and further development of the prestigious photography competition. She is the editor of the “40 Years of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award” catalogue, and curator of the exhibition with the same title, as well as the annual LOBA presentations at the Ernst Leitz Museum Wetzlar.