Marijana Schneider was born in Zagreb in 1923. She attended primary and secondary school (Real High School) in Zagreb, where she took a degree, from the Faculty of Philosophy, having read art and culture history with archaeology, universal and national history. After her course, she spent two years working in Jadran Film, one year in the Ethnographic Museum Zagreb, and from 1951 to 1983 worked in the History Museum today the Croatian History Museum, where she managed the Paintings, Prints and Sculptures of Church Art Collection. During her thirty years of working in the CHM, drawing on her scholarly studies of the material and the topics, she prepared and put on more than thirty exhibitions, of themes from history, culture history and art, including: Siget in Art, 1966; From the Cultural and Social Life of the Illyrian Revival, 1967; 19th Century Views in Prints, 1968; Historical Painting in Croatia, 1969; Folk costume in the Painting and Prints of the 19th century, 1971; The Painter Ivan Zasche (1825-1983) and many others.
In 1969 she became a consultant of the Institute for Art History. She has worked with the Bibliographic Lexicon of the Lexicographic Institute. She took a doctorate at the Faculty of Philosophy of Zagreb University in 1974 with a dissertation on: The painter Ivan Zasche and his Work. She often presented papers at symposia and conferences.
In the last thirty years she has published about 150 titles – books, discussions, studies, articles, guides and reviews, directing her research attention to fine arts and culture in Croatia. She has worked with many specialised periodicals. For her work she was awarded the Pavao Ritter Vitezović Prize of the Croatian Museum Association and the Order of the Croatian Daystar with Figure of Marko Marulić.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on February 19, 2003.