Oberteuffer was educated at the Lawrenceville School and graduated from Princeton in 1900. While still at Princeton he began night life drawing classes at the Pennsylvania Academy (1899-1900) and then continued as a full-time student there until 1905. He then moved to Paris where he remained until 1920.
In Paris he married the French painter Henriette Amiard in 1905, and became a member of the Salon D'Automne and the Salon des Independents. He was friends during this period with Arthur B. Carles and John Marin. He painted medieval churches and landscapes and taught at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere (1919-20). During World War I he served in the Amerian Red Cross in Paris.
Upon his return to the United States he taught at various art schools: the Milwaukee Art Institute; landscape painting at the Pennsylvania Academy (1922-25), the Chicago Art Institute; the Grand Central School of Art; Minneapolis Museum School; and the Memphis Academy. He served as a member of the jury for the 1926 Carnegie Institute International Exhibition.
A joint exhibition of his work, that of his wife, and of their son Karl was held in 1940 at Vose Galleries in Boston.
