Even before emigrating, Eric Schaal had been engaged intensively with photography and taken portraits of artists. In 1936, he emigrated to the USA, where he made photography his profession. Schaal worked for an agency called Pix, which had been founded by the legendary photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt, who had several of his photographs published on the covers of the magazines Time and Life. The cover of the January 23, 1939 issue of Time is a portrait of William Faulkner taken by Eric Schaal. In 1938, Schaal had taken several photographs of Faulkner in New York. Schaal's estate includes a small note from the author in the photographer's collection of autographs: "Thank you very much for the pictures. When I come to New York […] I will sign a book for you.“

Schaal always took portraits of artists, in private settings or working in their studios. He photographed exhibitions, individual works of art and art collections. Commissioned by Time-Life, he travelled to Europe several times in 1947. During these trips, he also worked on his own project and collected portraits and autographs for a book that was to be titled Das Antlitz des schöpferischen Menschen. Schaal never completed it.