Son of a precious stone engraver, he studied at the Munich Academy, and then specialized under the guidance of the painter Otto Ernst. Endowed with an unusual spirit of observation and a particular sensitivity, he devoted himself mainly to the pre-representation of naturalistic scenes, favoring hunting ones. In his paintings, the game, observed from life, is transposed onto the canvas with great attention to detail and inserted into masterfully formulated landscapes. In his artistic production, Schmitzberger has very often explored the salient moments of the hunt, describing the moment in which the prey, hit, is captured. Some of his paintings are kept in the Munich Picture Gallery (Solitude in the mountains) and in the Mareta hunting museum.