Emil Mayer was born on 3 October 1871 in Neubydzow, Bohemia (now Nový Bydžov, Czech Republic) to Leopold and Anna Mayer.[4] In the summer of 1882, Mayer moved with his family to Vienna, Austria, where “his father set up business as a merchant.”[5]
While still a student, Mayer left the Jewish community and converted to Catholicism. On 8 March 1894 he was baptized at the Johann Nepomuk Church (Leopoldstadt) [de] under the name Robert Emil.[4] The painter Max von Esterle [de] was his godfather.[4]
To escape persecution from the Nazi regime after the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Mayer and his wife died by suicide in their home (BöcklinStraße 12) in Vienna on 8 June 1938.[7][6]
After Mayer completed his studies at the University of Vienna, he established a law practice at Salvatorgasse 10 in Vienna.[4]
Mayer's first experience in photography was as an amateur, and he was a member of several Viennese photographer associations that focused on artistic photography. His artistic photos include documentary images of Wienerstraße images.[8]
Mayer was an honorary member of many domestic and foreign photographers' clubs. He also authored a textbook and was awarded several patents for photographic devices.[9]
Finally, Mayer left this he law firm and founded a photographic technology company DREM-Zentrale with Nikolaus Benedik.[7] The company's name was an abbreviation of DR. E. Mayer. International branches of the company included, DREM Products Corporation in New York and DREM Products Ltd. in London, England.[7][4]
1923 – Bromoil Printing and Bromoil Transfer. Boston, Mass: American Photographic Publishing Co., 1923. Translated from the seventh German edition by Frank Roy Fraprie, FRPS (1874 – 1951), editor of American Photography.
1927 – Bromöldruck und -Umdruck. (Enzyklopädie der Photographie; 81). 10. und 11. ergänzte Auflage. Knapp, Halle (Saale) 1927.
1927 – "A Manual of Bromoil & Transfer." Practical Photography, no. 12, 1927. Translated by Joseph M. Bing.
^Brandstätter, Christian; Hubmann, Franz (1995). Damals in Wien: Menschen um Die Jahrhundertwende Photographiert von Dr. Emil Mayer = Back Then in Vienna: People Around the Turn of the Century. Wien: Jüdisches Museum Wien / Verlag Christian Brandstätter. ISBN3-85447-532-2.
Hanreich, Anna (2005). "Der Prater in Farbe. Ein wiederentdeckter Diavortrag Emil Mayers über den Wiener Wurstelprater" [The Prater in Color. A Rediscovered Slide Show by Emil Mayer About the Wiener Wurstelprater]. In Dewald, Christian; Schwarz, Werner M. (eds.). Prater Kino Welt: der Wiener Prater und die Geschichte des Kinos [Prater Cinema World: The Vienna Prater and the History of Cinema] (in German). Wien: Filmarchiv Austria. ISBN9783901932700. (Catalog of the exhibition Prater Cinema World: Film Pleasures in the Old Prater at the Pratermuseum, Vienna, July 8-September 18, 2005).
Hanreich, Anna (2005). "Zur Fotografie Emil Mayers, Die Wiener Typen und der 'Wurstelprater'" [On Emil Mayer's Photography, Die Wiener Typen and the 'Wurstelprater']. Fotogeschichte (in German). 25 (95). (Ein Vortrag Emil Mayers über den Wiener Wurstelprater wurde im Österreichisches Volkshochschularchiv [de] (ÖVA) wiederentdeckt).
Walden, Gert (1989). Emil Mayer: Fotografien um 1910: 12. Mai-24. Juni 1989: Galerie Faber. Wien: Galerie Faber.
Hubmann, Franz; Breicha, Otto (c. 1974). Dr. Emil Mayer, 1871-1938: Photographien aus dem Wien der Jahrhundertwende [Dr. Emil Mayer, 1871-1938: Photographs from Vienna at the Turn of the Century] (in German). Graz: Kulturamt der Stadt Graz. OCLC62587728. Catalog of an exhibition at Kulturhaus, Graz; Museum des Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Museum of the Twentieth Century), Vienna; Galerie im Taxis-Palais, Innsbruck, 1973–1974.
Auckland City Art Gallery (1930). Catalogue of a Loan Collection of Photographs by Members of the Camera Club of New York and Dr. Emil Mayer Shown in the Art Gallery, Auckland, N.Z., Sept. 23 to Oct. 14, 1930. New Zealand: Whitcombe & Tombs, Ltd.