Art critic and early German historian of modern art. He was born in Eppendorf, Germany, which is present-day Hamburg, Germany. Scheffler graduated from the Realschule and took over his father's interior painting business. In 1888 he attended the Kunstgewerbeschule of Berlin where he mastered tapestry design. After working for a Berlin fabric firm, he started to write articles for the magazines Atelier and the Dekorative Kunst in 1897, and after 1899 for the better known Die Zukunft.