Lyonel Feininger was born in New York. At the age of 16 he moved back to his homeland with his parents of German descent, and despite having an artistic education - including the Hamburg School of Applied Arts and at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin - primarily worked as a caricaturist. In 1919, the year the Bauhaus was founded, Walter Gropius appointed him as master of the printmaking workshop, which he headed until 1925. One year earlier he founded the exhibition group "Die Blauen Vier" together with Alexej von Jawlensky, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Feininger left Germany in 1937 and returned to his native country. His great influence on 20th century art is not only due to his artistic work, but also to his work as a teacher at the Bauhaus.