Roger Diederen studied art history and archaeology at the University of Amsterdam from 1984 to 1990 with a focus on 17th century Dutch art. From 1990 to 1991 he worked at the Research Centre of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and from 1991 to 1994 he worked in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In 1993 he was a fellow of the European Paintings department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From 1994 to 2000 he was a research fellow at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he mainly worked on the inventory of 19th century European paintings. As a curator at the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York, he organized exhibitions in the field of art of the 19th century. In 2006 he moved to the Kunsthalle of the Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich as a curator, where he has been director since 2013.