Michaela Krinner was born in Waldmünchen in the Oberpfalz on 29 September 1915. She worked in Polling near Weilheim as a drawing teacher from 1942 to 1945 while also attending the Munich Art Academy.
Encouraged by attending Oskar Kokoschka's classes at the Salzburg Summer Academy between 1956 and 1958, Michaela Krinner started to paint in oils in 1957 although she had previously only drawn and worked in watercolour. During the 1960s she taught German at an international school in France. Her four years at Fontainbleau changed Michaela Krinner's handling from loose brush strokes to stringent geometric forms. Following Kokoschka's advice, Michaela Krinner laid aside what she had been taught and developed her own style, broadening her form repertoire, in which human figures and landscape had predominated, to include flora. By then Michaela Krinner was living in Laufen, where she continued to teach primary school and secondary modern school until 1978. Michaela Krinner's style in her oil paintings developed into a new 'Magic Realism', notable for increasing sharpness of observation and faithfulness to detail occasioning the use of fine marten-hair brushes. During the 1980s Michaela Krinner travelled extensively to Spain, Italy, Portugal, France and Egypt. Once again Michaela Krinner broadened her technical range to include etching and lithography, in which she was instructed by Friedrich Meckseper and Willi Wimmer. She often does two or three states of a print, each in different colours, working them over with watercolours or coloured chalks to make each print a one-of-a-kind. Since 1989 Michaela Krinner has been working experimentally, concentrating on colour effects rather than subject matter.