The well deformed (d~0.3) atomic nucleus 159Gd was investigated by means of radiative neutron capture and single neutron transfer reactions. Nearly 70 secondary gamma-rays from the (n,g) reaction studied with high-resultion bent-crystal spectrometers at Grenoble are assigned to 159Gd. About 200 levels with spin up to 11/2 are observed in this nucleus below 2.3 MeV in (d,p) and (d[pol],t) reactions investigated at the Tandem Van de Graaff accelerator in Garching using unpolarized (18~MeV) and polarized (22 MeV) deuteron beams, respectively. The proposed level scheme for this nucleus is arranged into 21 rotational bands. Experimentally observed levels are interpreted using predictions obtained within the quasiparticle-phonon model and the quasiparticle-rotor approach for a well deformed nucleus