Robert Hermann Sterl was born on June 23 of 1867 in Dresden Germany. He attended the “Volksschule” (school providing basic primary and secondary education) in Dresden, run by the artist Ernst Hahn.

Between 1881 and 1891 he studied at the the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden with Leon Pohle, Julius Scholtz and Wilhelm Walter among others and, in 1886 became the  master student of Ferdinand Pauwels where he came in contact with the artists of “Die Mappe.” He joined the Goppelner circle of open-air painters.

In 1892 he began a lifelong series of travels throughout Europe returning to his studio in Dresden in 1893. This also began a series of trips to Elbe and Hessen through 1920.

In 1894 he began working in Hamburg in architectural studies and opened a drawing studio for ladies in Dresden. Sterl began to exhibit while continuing to travel with artist friends Carl Bantzer and Wilhelm Claudius. In 1904 he closed his school and began teaching at the Art Academy in Dresden where he got a professorship in 1909. He was appointed a non-local member  of the Berliner Secession.

In 1910 he took part in the first Volga tour with Sergei Kussewitzky and his orchestra  (with solists Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin) and later that year had surgery in Dresden. In 1912 he went on the second Volga tour in Russia and the third in 1914.

After the outbreak of WWI he became a war painter on the western front in France but returned to Dresden to become chairman of the painting studio at the Art Academy.

In 1921 he developed a facial tumor and his health further deteriorated. The next few years were spent in health resorts and hospitals.

Robert Hermann Sterl died in Naundorf, Germany on January 10, 1932.