Paczka-Wagner née Wagner was born on 9 August 1864 in Göttingen. She attended the "Königliche Akademie der Bildenden Kunste" (Academy of Fine Arts, Munich) and studied with Karl Stauffer-Bern. She traveled to Rome to continue her studies, and there she met the Hungarian painter , who she married in Rome in 1890. The couple settled in Berlin. Paczka-Wagner won a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition Universelle (1889).