He is known, in particular, for his landscape paintings, his "atmospheric scenes" ("Stimmungsbilder") and for the many views of Salzburg, his adopted home city, that he produced.
[1][2][3] Herbert Breiter was born at Landeshut (as it was known at that time), a country town in the Riesengebruge / Krkonoše foothills south-west of Breslau / Wrocław (Lower Silesia).
The boys' father, a skilled engineer originally from nearby Schreibendorf, was employed at the Rinkel textiles business in the town.
[4] In 1944, having passed the necessary entrance exam, he was offered and accepted a student place at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.
[5][7] The couple's home in Salzburg-Mönchsberg became a regular meeting point for painters, musicians and theatre folk such as Caspar Neher, Gottfried von Einem, Oscar Fritz Schuh and Carl Orff.
[7] It was through Neher and von Einem that, in 1948, Breiter was accepted into what sources identify as the "International Art Club".
Leo "Switbert" Lobisser (1878-1943), her father, had been a Benedictine monk at Lavanttal (in the mountains between Klagenfurt and Graz) since entering the monastery there as a novice in 1899.
In 1932 he resigned from the monastery and settled in Klagenfurt, after falling in love with Eva "Ev" Luise Bleymaier, Burgi's mother.
[10] It is clear from his output that Breiter was still making regular trips to Italy during the later 1970s and beyond, and still painting the landscapes there, but his later Italian work is, for the most part, produced not on the islands but in Tuscany.
He taught Eliette von Karajan, who lived (sometimes) in Salzburg in connection with her husband's professional calendar.
[12] Eliette von Karajan had grown up in southern France: her own artistic output indicates that she shared Breiter's love of Mediterranean landscapes.