1908
Peter Kurt Scheier (1908-1979) is born to a Jewish family on June 6, in the German city of Głogów, now part of Poland.
December 1920
He studies at the Głogów Commercial College and works at his father’s department store.
c. 1932
He marries Clementine Irmgard Maria Wilhelmine John, a German Catholic.
1933
He moves to the town of Hohenau on the Austrian border and works as an accounts clerk at the sugar beet refinery owned by his mother’s brother, Oskar Strakosch.
While in Hohenau, he starts taking amateur photographs.
1934
Stefan Erich Scheier is born to Scheier and Wilhelmine.
1935
The Nuremberg Laws come into force, including the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which gave legal form to the idea of racial purity and criminalized marriage between “Aryans” and Jews.
1937
Scheier and Wilhelmine divorce.
Oskar Strakosch sends out letters of recommendation to help Peter Scheier leave Germany. One of them is addressed to the Armour Meat Packing Company in the USA, which has a subsidiary in São Paulo. Strakosch also introduces his nephew to the Austrian cardboard manufacturer Falpa in Vienna. Scheier moves to Vienna, where he meets Gertrude Willheim, who is also Jewish, and becomes his wife in Brazil.
Leaving Vienna, Scheier embarks on a ship to Brazil. He arrives in Rio de Janeiro with a letter from Armour stating that the company has contracted him. Scheier moves to the city of São Paulo and starts working as a sausage maker in the meat packing company.
1939
Gertrude Willheim emigrates to Brazil and marries Scheier in São Paulo.
Scheier starts selling lamp shades to supplement the family’s income.
He photographs the shades and produces a catalog to help sales. The initiative is the beginning of his involvement with professional photography. That same year, he becomes a typographer for the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo and starts taking photographs for the newspaper’s photographic supplement.
1940
Scheier wins 1st prize and 1st Honorable Mention in the national competition run by the O Estado de S. Paulo‘s photographic supplement to commemorate the centenary of the invention of photography.
He publishes photos in the magazine O Malho.
In the beginning of the decade, he opens the Foto Studio Peter Scheier, which operates until 1975. At first, the studio’s business is mainly taking portraits and photographing social events such as weddings, christenings, dances, inaugurations, and graduations.
In a few years, he starts to take advertising and architectural photographs, working with architects such as Rino Levi, Lina Bo Bardi, Oswaldo Bratke, Bernard Rudofsky and Gregori Warchavchik, and with specialized magazines such as Acrópole and Habitat.
The Foto Studio Peter Scheier employs a number of people, some of whom worked as photographers, especially for social occasions.
1942
His son, Thomas Roberto Scheier, is born.
1943
Scheier’s photographs of projects by the architect Bernardo Rudofsky are published in the catalog for the exhibition Brazil Builds organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).
1945
His daughter, Irene Elizabeth Scheier, is born.
He starts to work with the magazine O Cruzeiro, a collaboration that lasts until 1951.
As a photographer for O Cruzeiro he travels several times to the United States, where his parents and sister live. While he is there he contacts the photojournalism agencies Monkmeyer Press Photo Service and Pix Incorporated and starts working with them.
1947
He starts taking photographs of the activities of the recently opened Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). He documents the museum’s exhibitions, works, events and courses, as well as taking photographs for the museum’s magazine Habitat, edited at first by the architect Lina Bo Bardi.
At the same time he photographs the work of the design studio Arte Palma and the furniture manufacturer Móveis Pau Brasil Ltda., both of which are established by Pietro Maria Bardi and Lina Bo Bardi in 1948 in partnership with the Italian architect Giancarlo Palanti. He also photographs some of Lina Bo Bardi’s architectural projects.
1951
Scheier becomes a Brazilian citizen on March 9.
In the early 1950s he starts working as an industrial photographer, an activity he continues over the following decades.
He photographs the mounting, exhibition spaces, and the opening of the 1st Biennale of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.
Over the 1950s and 60s, Scheier works with American magazines such as Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as the Swiss magazine Schweizer Illustrierte.
1953
Scheier takes photographs for the book Paraná, Brasil published by Imprensa Paranaense to commemorate the centenary of the state of Paraná.
1954
Peter Scheier takes the photographs for the album São Paulo: Fastest Growing City in the World, designed by George Rado and published by Livraria Kosmos Editora for the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city.
1956
Scheier’s photographs of architectural projects by Lina Bo Bardi and Rino Levi are published in the book Modern Architecture in Brazil, by Henrique Mindlin.
1958
He works on the exhibition on Brazilian architecture organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He goes to Brasília to photograph the first wedding in the city.
In September, he starts working with TV Record, photographing celebrities, musical shows and soap operas.
1959
Scheier travels round Israel for almost a month at the invitation of the Israeli government to photograph the country during the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of its founding.
His photographs are published in a series of eight articles by the newspaper Diário de S. Paulo. The photos are shown in the exhibition Assim Vive Israel [Life in Israel] at the Congregação Israelita Paulista (CIP) in São Paulo and at the headquarters of the Brazilian Press Association in Rio de Janeiro.
His photographs are included in the book Brazil: Portraits of a Great Country, edited by Stefan Geyerhahn, alongside the work of other photographers, such as Claudia Andujar, Alice Brill, Marcel Gautherot and others.
1960
Scheier buys a VW Kombi and converts it into a campervan, which he uses to take his family on trips around Brazil.
He returns with his family to Brasilia in the Kombi to photograph the inauguration of the new capital city and scenes of daily life.
His photographs are distributed by the American agency Pix Incorporate and are included, along with photos from his 1958 trip to the city, in the book Brasília vive! [Brasília Lives!], published by Livraria Kosmos Editora.
The exhibition Assim Vive Israel is shown at the Centro Israelita do Paraná, in Curitiba.
1962
He travels with his family to the northeast of Brazil and visits various cities, including Salvador and Crato.
1965
He starts making audiovisual productions of multi-image projections of colored slides accompanied by a musical soundtrack and voice over.
1968
His book Imagens do passado de Minas Gerais [Images of the Past of Minas Gerais] is published by Livraria Kosmos Editora.
He starts experimenting with multi-image devices, a new technology which projects multiple slides combined with a soundtrack.
He is commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to produce a multi-image show to present Brazil at the International Food Fair in Paris.
1970
He produces a large multi-image show for the Brazilian pavilion at the Osaka World Fair, again commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
MASP presents a retrospective of his work: 30 anos de visão e multivisão [30 Years of Images and Multi-images].
1975
Scheier shows four new multi-image projects at MASP in August: Cem anos dos clássicos de Viena [A Hundred Years of the Viennese Classics], Embu, Brasil azul – Sonho de um pintor português [Blue Brazil – Dreams of a Portuguese Painter] and Profetas [Prophets].
Foto Studio Peter Scheier closes.
Scheier and his wife return to Germany and settle in the town of Ainring. His collection of photographs remains in Brazil under the care of his children.
1979
61 of Scheier’s photographs are included in the collection Nosso século [Our Century], published by Abril Cultural.
Peter Scheier dies in Ainring, Germany, on 8 November. He is laid to rest in Salzburg, Austria.
1985
Peter Scheier’s photographic collection is donated to the Victor Civita Foundation in São Paulo.
2004
Peter Scheier’s photographic collection is transferred to the Arquivo Histórico Judaico Brasileiro (AHJB), in São Paulo.
2009
On 18 May 2009, the Peter Scheier collection of c. 35,000 negatives, as well as documents, albums, and books, is acquired by the Instituto Moreira Salles. Part of the collection remains with his family.
2014
Lucas Lenci, Peter Scheier’s grandson, sets up the Instituto Peter Scheier in São Paulo.
Lenci publishes the book Diário de viagem [Travel Diary], of photos of the Scheier family’s trips together in the 1960s.