Master of Physician Portraits

About the Exibition

The Josephinum is pleased to present the portrait photographer Max Schneider (1887–1958) to the public for the first time in a special exhibition.

In 1923, Schneider begins taking pictures of leading personalities on behalf of the Vienna Medical Faculty. Technically adept, he produces numerous portraits of high artistic quality. He takes a familiar, sometimes almost intimate look at the leading figures of Viennese medicine and thus works out their characteristic traits. His images are popular and are printed in various media and he transfers them into drawings, paintings and prints. Different political orientations collide in his studio. Schneider creates a kaleidoscope of diverse personalities that is brutally broken up in 1938. The photo studio was “Aryanized” and Schneider had to flee with his family. After living in India and the United States, Schneider died in 1958 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The collections of the Medical University of Vienna (which emerged from the Vienna Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna) in the Josephinum contain around 400 photographs by Schneider. On the 100th anniversary of his work at the Medical Faculty, the Museum of Medical History Vienna is showing the work and life of the “Master of Physician Portraits” for the first time.