Pietschmann belonged to the painters' colony in Goppeln near Bannewitz, which specialized in plein air painting.

He spent two years in Italy with Hans Unger, after which he continued his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris, where he was mainly engaged in nude drawing.

His 3.8-meter × 2.6-meter sea painting Polyphemus' Fish Catch was exhibited in Dresden in 1892, where Pietschmann was praised as a "bright painter of the latest Parisian school," as well as at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

[2] With fellow Symbolists Oskar Zwintscher, Richard Müller, Georg Jahn, Hans Unger, and Sascha Schneider, Pietschmann formed a "‘phalanx of the strong’ that signified Dresden's art at the turn of the century.

Large parts of Pietschmann's artistic and written estate are in the archives of the Dresden State Art Collections.