A native of Wiesbaden, Schirm initially began to study chemistry and physics in Bonn before he moved to the Großherzoglich Badische Kunstschule in Karlsruhe on the advice of Christian Eduard Bötticher. There he studied as a master student of Hans Gude, whose daughter he later married, and with Ernst Hildebrandt and Eugen Bracht. Together with Bracht he took an extended study trip to Syria, Palestine and Egypt from 1880-1881. In the late 1870s he traveled to Scotland, painting the high mountains.