He took art classes in Breslau, qualifying as an art teacher in 1881. He furthered his studies in Munich and Paris, where his interest in natural sciencesgrew. He subsequently moved to Zurich in 1892 in order to study geology. In the latter part of the 1890s, he was invited by botanist Melchior Treub to Java as an illustrator. On Java, along with his artistic duties, he collected regional botanical specimens and conducted investigations of the island's mosses. During his time spent in the Dutch East Indies, he also learned the technique of creating batik prints from vegetable dyes. After several years on Java, he traveled to New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, Australia, New Zealand and South America, prior to returning to Germany in 1903. From 1908 to 1913, he revisited Maritime Southeast Asia, where he collected mostly bryophytes but also orchids and fungi on Java. In 1914 he began work at the botanical museum in Berlin and three years later, he was appointed a professor of botany at the University of Berlin. In 1925 he traveled to the Canary Islands in order to paint and to study the regions' mosses. During the following year, he relocated to The Hague, and in 1927 he returned to the Canaries with his second wife, P.G. Haigton. After his death in 1930, his private collections and library were purchased by an antiquarian in Leipzig.
File:Max Fleischer Weiblicher Studienkopf.jpg|Painting of a female student File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Olieverfschilderij schets van deBorobudur TMnr 6345-1.jpg|Painting of Borobudur File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Olieverfschildering door Max Fleischer voorstellend de tempelruïne Candi Sewu TMnr 822-3.jpg|Ruins of Candi Sewu File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Olieverfschildering door Max Fleischer voorstellend de tempel Candi Bima op het Diengplateau TMnr 822-4.jpg|Painting of Candi Bima in Dieng Plateau File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Olieverfschildering door Max Fleischer voorstellend vier tempels op het Diëng Plateau TMnr 822-2.jpg|Candi Arjuna in Dieng Plateau File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Aquarel voorstellend een tempel op Bali TMnr 3204-104.jpg|Painting of Balinese Temple File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Olieverfschilderij voorstellende de Plantentuin te Buitenzorg TMnr 15-983.jpg|Painting of Bogor Botanical Garden, where Max Fleischer work with Dr. Melchior Treub. File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Olieverfschilderij voorstellende drie mannen in een vijver TMnr 15-985.jpg|Painting of 3 Javanese men in a pond File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Javaanse danseressen TMnr 3204-367.jpg|Painting of Javanese dancers File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Schildering voorstellend een Javaans rivierlandschap door Max Fleischer TMnr 822-12.jpg|A Javanese river landscape
Publications
"Die Musci der Flora von Buitenzorg : zugleich Laubmoosflora von Java / bearbeitet von Max Fleischer ; Enthaltend alle aus Java bekannt gewordenden Sphagnales und Bryales, nebst kritischen Bemerkungen vieler Archipelarten, sowie, indischer und australischer Arten"; Series: Flore de Buitenzorg ; pt. 5. Leiden : E.J. Brill,. In the fourth volume of this work, he delineated a new natural system of classifying mosses that was subsequently adopted by Viktor Ferdinand Brotherus in his second edition of Musci in Adolf Engler's Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien.
