Dan Dieter Gottschalk was born on May 21, 1919 in Ulm, Germany to Carl Gottschalk and Anna Kahn and in 1939 emigrated to the United States, settling in Arvada, Jefferson County, Colorado where he finished one year of high school. In March of 1943 he enlisted in the US Army, stating his birth year as 1914, and was discharged in 1945. He spent his early years in Florida. He moved to Woodstock, New York and worked as an artist, doing portraits and abstract imagery. An active member of the Woodstock Art Association he also served as its Chairman. Gottschalk would divide his time in the 60's on the island of Ossabaw, off the coast of Georgia as part of the Ossabaw Island Project, an artists and scholars retreat. The island was sold to the state of Georgia in 1978.

Gottschalk exhibited throughout the East Coast, including an exhbition in 1966 at the Art Collectors Place in New York.

Dan Gottschalk died in Woodstock, New York in October of 1979 at the age of 60.