Jennifer Gough-Cooper was brought up in England and studied at Hornsey College of Art in the 1960s. As an exhibition organizer, she was involved in the Marcel Duchamp retrospective which formed the inaugural show at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, in 1977.

Jennifer’s later extensive research of the artist culminated in the book Marcel Duchamp: Work and Life, published for the exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice in 1993. After an extended visit to Cape Town in 1998, Jennifer held her first exhibition of black and white photographs at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. These photographs, all taken within Kirstenbosch, formed the inaugural art exhibition at the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Jennifer Gough-Cooper, with the Scottish artist, Ian Hamilton Finlay, published Paths for an exhibition at Schoenthal in Switzerland. Her book Apropos Rodin inspired by the work of the French sculptor in its setting at the Musée Rodin, Paris, was published in 2006. Selected Rodin photographs have been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art, London, the Musée Rodin, Paris, and the Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica.