Bernhard Sprengel had already developed a passion for 20th-century art and he had begun a private collection of paintings and sculpture, including works by Picasso, Chagall, Macke, Beckmann, Marc, Klee and Feininger.
At the urging of Lyonel Feininger, he accepted, becoming the youngest Master of Form.
Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956), German-American painter and caricaturist
In their simplicity and semi-abstract formalism, they foreshadow more modern works such as those of Mondrian and Feininger.
Lyonel Feininger | Feininger | Karl Feininger | Andreas Feininger |
Numerous exhibitions have been presented at the gallery, including the works of Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Bonnard, Tanguy, Léger, Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, Rauschenberg, Sisley, Feininger, Giacometti, and Miró.
His artistic style is based on what he calls "foquism" which may be considered as an extension in terms of style of art presented by the cubism of Picasso or the works created by Georges Braque, Franz Marc, or Lyonel Feininger or even the futurist art movement.
Early influences on Byrd included the abstract expressionists and modernists Lyonel Feininger, Willem de Kooning, John Marin, and Mark Rothko, as well as the realist Edward Hopper.
A collection of his letters shows that he was personally well acquainted with modern artists at the time, and he acquired and exhibited works by many of them, including Barlach, Feininger, Hofer, Kandinsky, Kirchner, Klee, Kokoschka, Lissitzky, Marc, and Munch.
For four years (1928–32), she and her husband lived in Berkeley, California where she joined various art leagues and worked with prominent artists in the Bay Area, including John Emmett Gerrity, David Park and Galka Scheyer who represented The Blue Four: European abstractionists, Feininger, Kandinsky, Jawlensky and Klee.