Anselm Weißenhofer completed his Catholic theology studies in 1908 and became a priest. In 1919 he obtained a doctorate in art history and habilitated four years later in ecclesiastical art history at the University of Vienna, subsequently lecturing in the Faculty of Catholic Theology and the Kunstgewerbeschule (Arts and Crafts School) in Vienna, where he was appointed extraordinary professor in 1930 and also taught general history of art. Apart from working as a secondary school religion teacher, he was curator of the Schottenstift picture gallery from 1925 to 1930. Many publications and memberships – among others, as chairman of the art section of the Leo-Gesellschaft in Austria, in the Neuer Werkbund, the Gesellschaft zur Förderung österreichischer Kunst im Ausland, the Wiener Vereinigung bildender Künstler and the Wiener Secession – confirm his interest in art history, particularly religious art. Although becoming a member of the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) in July 1939, according to his personnel files, remuneration for his teaching at the University of Vienna and Kunstgewerbeschule was suspended for ideological reasons. He continued to lecture and organize excursions at both schools, however, and was appointed as an unbudgeted professor in 1940. In May 1940, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer appointed him director of the Dom- und Diözesanmuseum (Cathedral and Diocese Museum). The Gaupersonalamt (Gau personnel department) listed him as a Catholic priest with nationalist inclinations and not hostile to National Socialism. He retired as a secondary school teacher in 1943 at the age of sixty. In October 1945 he once again obtained a lectureship at the University of Vienna and the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst (College of Applied Arts), as it was now called, in Vienna. From October 1947 until 1959 he also taught at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna).