As the son of the surgeon Hans Hellner, Gösta Hellner was born during World War II. In his youth, he learnt painting from Fritz Winter and in photography he completed an internship with Heinrich Heidersberger (1906-2006) in Braunschweig. In 1958 he started studying photography in Munich at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie.

After passing his master's examination, he moved to Greece in 1962. There he succeeded Eva-Maria Czakó as photographer at the German Archaeological Institute for around 22 years, and devoted himself to archaeological photography, specializing in the field of ancient sculpture. In collaboration with well-known archaeologists of his time, he photographed, for example, the Caryatids of the Erechteion on the Acropolis of Athens by night (1973), the tunnel of Eupalinos on Samos (1974), and in collaboration with Franz Willemsen, the so-called ‘Ostrakismos’ sherds from the Kerameikos in Athens (1963). Most of the photographs have been digitalized and can be accessed via the archaeological object database Arachne.

From 1985, Gösta Hellner devoted himself exclusively to the visual arts.

In 2008, Gösta Hellner was honored in the exhibition ‘The creative photograph in Archaeology’ at the Benaki Museum in Athens for his special way of photographing ancient sculpture. His photographs were used for the ‘Caryatid Hairstyling Project’ at Fairfield University, among others...