Paula Rösler (also Roesler – Rossler) was born on August 27, 1875 in Rodach, Germany to Max and Theodore Roesler.

Until 1902, Paula Rösler received teaching from the parents' house through a tutor and during this time hardly appeared publicly. She left Rodach for an art study in Munich. At that time, women had not yet been admitted to the Kunstakademie in Munich, and so she started her training at the Ladies 'Academy of the Munich Artists' Association. A study trip to Florence and at least twelve changes of residence marked this time in Munich, which lasted until 1915. From 1906 she  worked as a freelance artist in Munich, using a variety of techniques: etchings, drawings, pastel drawings, temperas, and paper cuts, which she first exhibited in 1914.

Rösler met writer Waldemar Bonsel in Munich and both of them combined for decades of friendship. Early on, she was convinced of his literary talent, as reflected, for example, in letters from 1908, before Bonsel's book Die Biene Maja in 1912 led to a literary world fame. She supported him several times financially. Their collaborate poem "Falter" got published in his Schwabinger publishing house. That relationship ended in 1920 when he refused to help her, despite all her earlier financial and emotional assistance. On December 12,1915, Paula Rösler left Munich and moved to Achenmühle in the Chiemgau. The following quotation from the well-known Bavarian writer and feuilletonist Josef Hofmiller in the Munich News may reveal the reasons for this: "The Chiemgau is extremely picturesque, and as more and more artists continually settle in it, this is only natural ... One realizes that Painters just settle here.”

After 1900, many artists had settled at the Chiemgau, among them Karl Hermann Müller-Samerberg, Emil Thoma, Bernhard Klinckerfuß and Paul Roloff. They lived there for themselves, closely connected with the landscape and the people, some of them joined the Chiemgauer Künstlerbund and Frauenwörther groups in the 1920s. The painters longed for more freedom and in 1921, Klinlerfuss, Roloff, Emil Thoma,  Müller-Samerberg, Paula Rösler, and the sculptor Friedrich Lommel founded a "free association of Chiemgauer artists", which, on the suggestion of Anette Thoma, received the name "Welle" (Wave). This referred to the location of the future exhibition building. The symbol for this was developed by Emil Thoma, Anettes Mann.

The “Wave” was not an artists' colony in the true sense of the word, and was often referred to as the Worpswede des Chiemgau. The members did not want to be confined to a manifesto or a fixed program, but to be a guild bound together by mutual artistic desire and reciprocal friendship. The "Wave" lasted from 1922 - 1933 and Paula Rösler was the only woman involved in the founding.

Because the Herreninsel was not available, a wooden pavilion was planned in Stock / Prien on the Chiemseeufer. To this purpose, each of the members - Bernhard Klinckerfuß, Emil Thoma, Friedrich Lommel, Paul Roloff, Hermann Mueller-Samerberg, Wolfgang Zeller, Rudolf Sieck and Paula Rösler – decided they should each spend DM 10,000. However Paula Rösler was in a difficult financial situation so the amount was reduced, and yet she had to turn for a loan to Waldemar Bonsels.

On 24 June 1922, the exhibition pavilion was opened, and Paula Rösler, who married Feodor von Goeschen in 1926 and from then on Paula von Goeschen-Rösler, exhibited here until 1933.

Paula Rösler experimented with phantasy forms, but then she was able to get past the influence of the artist colleague Paul Roloff. Almost exclusively, she then worked on gracefully stylized and very moving plant forms. Looking at the chronological sequence, one can observe the formats become larger, the lines sharper. Forms of Jugendstil, which shaped their time, are reflected in the works. You can see the influence of Japanese art. At this point she was working in paper art, cut out using scissors.

Feodor von Goeschen soon fell ill and died in 1931. In 1932, Paula moved from Goeschen-Rösler to Wurmsdorf, near Söllhuben, Germany, where she spent her last years.

Paula von Goeschen-Rösler died on April 9, 1941.