Haider was born 11 February 1879 at Munich, son to the Munich painter Karl Haider and his first wife Katharina, née Brugger (died 1882), niece to the sculptor Friedrich Brugger.
His half-brother, Ernst Haider, son of his father's 1890 second marriage to Ernestine Schwarz, was also a painter.
After attending the Gymnasium Dillingen (grammar school), he transferred in 1891–92 to Munich's Maximiliansgymnasium.
He developed an artistic relationship with the older landscape painter Edmund Steppes, and through him with his son-in-law Karl Alexander Flügel (1890-1967).
[2] He mainly chose subjects from the Upper Bavarian Alpine foothills and mountainous regions.