He was born to a family of wealthy
Transylvanian Saxon merchants, and pursued that trade until he was twenty-nine. At that time, his interest in art led him to enroll at the
Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he studied for two years, then transferred to the
Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied with the history painter,
Johann Caspar Herterich. While there, he was also influenced by the works of
Wilhelm Leibl,
Max Liebermann and
Fritz von Uhde. From 1890 to 1891, he went to Italy, visiting Rome and Venice, where he copied the works of
Titian. He returned to Italy two years later, living in
Cervara di Roma and painting landscapes en
plein air. He spent the years 1894 to 1896 in Rome, working in the studio of his fellow German-Romanian, . Upon returning to Brașov, he opened his own studio, becoming one of the first to work as a freelance artist in that area. His workshop soon became a meeting place for the German-speaking artistic community. Those who worked with him there included
Hans Mattis-Teutsch and
Margarete Depner. In 1903, he served on a committee charged with overseeing the selection of painters to work on the restoration of
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sibiu. He exhibited throughout Romania, as well as in Berlin and Budapest, where he was awarded a gold medal at the National Exhibition in 1909. Many of his works were reproduced in
Die Karpathen, a local German-language magazine. ==Selected paintings==