Max Kahrer started his training with Professor Franz Rumpler in 1893 at the Imperial and Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He left Vienna in 1902 to move to Weidling and a year later to Klosterneuburg. The first professional successes came in 1903 after participating in an exhibition of the Hagenbund. In 1906 he became a co-founder of the artists' association "Verein heimischer Künstler in Klosterneuburg", in which he was represented in a total of sixteen exhibitions between 1908 and 1937 with numerous works.
In the year of the club's foundation, he married Maria Vohburger. However, the marriage didn't have a promising start. In the coming years, private and financial problems alternated. It was not until 1908 that the acquaintance with the patron Heinrich Neumann somewhat eased their financial situation. After Neumann's death in 1912, Kahrer met his new patron von Schöller, who sent him 500 crowns a month for a year, so that the artist could begin further studies in Munich with Professor Richard Kaiser. The First World War almost brought his artistic activity to a standstill. In 1918 Max Kahrer worked as a writer in the "Trainzeugdepot" in Klosterneuburg. Based on his own records, the artist created in total around 1,600 pictures.
Max Kahrer's early oeuvre shows a strong, deep shade of colour with mostly broad brushstrokes. Around 1900, the influence of Art Nouveau and Symbolism can be observed in his work. The colour is more subdued, lighter and shades of silver become predominant. In the 1920s, the mountain landscape motif appeared in dark shades with a strictly linear contour.
The artist Max Kahrer died in Klosterneuburg in 1937.
