Schmidt was the son of a physician. After work and military service as well as American war imprisonment, he began studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1946. In 1947 he moved to the fields of archeology and art history. In 1951 he graduated with a dissertation on French relief sculpture.
He habilitated[clarification needed] in 1959 with the work "Die Armenbibeln des XIV. Jahrhunderts". In 1968, he was appointed full professor of the University of Vienna from which he retired in 1992. From 1973 he was a member of the philosophical-historical class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was elected a full member in 1984.
Schmidt was buried at the Heiligenstadt cemetery in Vienna.
Selected publications
Neue Malerei in Osterreich. 1956
Die Armenbibeln des XIV. Jahrhunderts. 1959
Die Wiener Biblia pauperum. 1962
Die Malerschule von St. Florian. 1962
Krumauer Bildercodex. 1967
Stelzen und Pylonen. 1989
Gotische Bildwerke und ihre Meister. 1991
References
^Gerhard Schmidt. Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 1 July 2017.