Rolf Händler was born in Halle/Saale (Saxony-Anhalt) in 1938. He studied commercial art at the University of Applied Art in Magdeburg from 1956 to 1959 and painting at the Weissensee University of the Arts in East Berlin from 1961 to 1966, then was a masters student of Karl Erich Müller at the German Academy of Arts, East Berlin, until 1972. Afterwards he worked as a freelance painter and graphic artist. Händler died in Berlin in 2021.