She was the daughter of the painter Emma Kehrmann (1867–1958)[1] and her father Ernst (1861-1926) was a College teacher that helped to introduce civics into the curriculum.

[2] She studied art history at the universities of Frankfurt, Bonn and Munich, under Rudolf Kautzsch, who supervised her doctorate, and Heinrich Wölfflin.

She attended classes by Johannes Cissarz, and Willi Baumeister and spent time in 1926 in Paris.

When her studio was destroyed in World War II, she returned to art history.

She studied at the Courtauld Institute in London after the war, focusing on the artists of the Tudor court, and wrote a second dissertation on patronage and painting in 16th-century England.