Printmaker and painter Carl Moser was born in Bolzano, South Tyrol, on January 27, 1873, the son of painter Karl Moser the Elder. His formal art training began at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied under Karl Raupp, Gabriel von Hackl, and Ludwig von Herterich. He had established himself as an up-and-coming Austrian artist by the late 1890s and, in 1897, co-founded the Vienna Secession movement with Maxmilian Kurzweil, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Joseph Olbrich, and Josef Hoffman. His work was especially lauded by Kurzweil, editor of the Secession periodical Ver Sacrum and the person often credited with encouraging Moser to learn the color woodcut technique. 

Following his years at the Academy, Moser spent time travelling in Germany, Italy and Corsica before settling in Paris in 1901, where he first learned of ukiyo-e, the Japanese woodcut style that had gained wild popularity throughout Europe by 1900. While living in France, Moser traveled to Brittany every summer, where the coastal towns and people soon became a source of great inspiration and one that he carried throughout his career. In 1906 he enrolled at the Academie Julian, where he studied for a year before he was forced to return to Bolzano due to financial difficulty.

His main focuses by this time were Japanese woodcut and French Impressionism, and he became known for his richly hued, sensitive imagery, particularly of the daily lives of coastal Bretons. Recognition for his work was soon garnered by the Viennese government and between 1910 and 1915 several of his woodcuts were purchased by the Albertina Museum of Prints and Drawings. In 1914 he exhibited his work at the first international art exhibition in Leipzig, and showed frequently in Vienna's leading galleries, such as Galerie Miethke. 

With the outbreak of World War I and the ensuing separation of South Tyrol from Austria, he and many other South Tyrolean artists were forced to change their nationality to Italian, and could no longer exhibit in those countries. Moser, now unable to maintain his professional relationships with dealers in Austria and Germany, was effectively cut off from his source of income and reputation. Though attempts were made to revive the careers of Tyrolean artists after the war - including a major exhibition in Zurich in 1920 - Moser had to focus solely on Italian exhibitions until the relaxation of the laws in the mid 1920s. By then, however, the damage had been done: Moser was no longer a leading artist in the now rapidly changing Europe, and age had lessened his ability to travel and self-promote as he once had. He continued to show in the Venice Biennale until 1936, but failing health rendered him unable to continue working. He became isolated and, despite having been one of the most influential Austrian color woodcut artists of his time, he died in poverty and obscurity in Bolzano on June 23, 1939.

Four decades later, Moser's work would be rediscovered and celebrated with a major retrospective in Innsbruck in 1978. His work can be found in the Albertina Museum in Vienna; the British Museum, London; and the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Brookhaven, GA.