There he attended the Vienna University of Technology to study electrical engineering and was made assistant to photography historian Josef Maria Eder who encouraged him to take up the medium and, through the Leitz firm, provided him with an early Leica model to test.
An accomplished sportsman Steiner, through his involvement in Hakoah, Vienna's Jewish sports circle, and as one of the trainers of the prestigious swim team to which she belonged, he met Léa Sasson then aged thirteen.
[2] At first André worked as a sound engineer with Althsom until 1932 for Paramount Studios and the Phototone Society, and collaborating with Gasparcolor on the development of colour motion picture film.
[5] His scientific approach to the medium through his technical background in engineering influenced his precise and perfectionist photography,[6] especially in modernist studies of cast shadows from transparent or translucent materials.
[12] His work was selected for the International Exhibition of Contemporary Photography at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris in 1936 and was subsequently specially commissioned for reportage by magazines Vu, Paris-soir, Marianne, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and others.