Želimir Koščević was born in Zagreb in 1939. He took a BA (art history) and ethnology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1964. He spent a year working in the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, and up to 1979 was managed of the Student Centre Gallery; from 1980 he was senior curator and museum adviser to the City of Zagreb Galleries, today the Museum of Contemporary Art. He was a part time lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, and since 1983 has been a forensic expert for 20th century art.
From 1992 to 1995 he was art editor in the Lexicographic Institute, on the project of Croatian Fine Arts Encyclopaedia. In 1993 and 1994 he was consultant for the Sao Paolo Biennial, and in 1995 a collaborator on the Europa-Europa Project in Bonn, as well as a member of the inner circle for the exhibition of contemporary art in Salonika, 2004.
He is a member of numerous professional associations – ICOM, CIMAM, AICA, and for two terms was president of the Croatian National Committee of ICOM. He founded the Lang Photo Gallery in Samobor.
He has written some 15 books and monographs, published about 500 studies, critiques and articles at home and abroad and taken an active part in many scholarly and professional conferences in Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Poland, Germany Hungary and the UK. He is the author of some 40 exhibition projects and exhibitions (Braco Dimitrijević, Gorki Žuvela, Goran Trbuljak, Dalibor Martinis, Xerox, Mail Art, Imaginary Museum 1, 2 and 3, Boris Bućan, Cartographic-Geognostic Projections for the 21st Century).
He is the organiser of the annual conference of the International Committee of Museums of Modern Art (ICOM-CIMAM) in Dubrovnik in 1987 and the CEICOM meet (Central European International Council of Museums) in Zagreb, 1999.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on January 19, 2005.