Andreas Feininger American, b. France, 1906-1999. Born in Paris, Andreas Bernhard Lyonel Feininger is a documentary photographer who has specialized in photojournalism as well as architectural and nature studies. He trained as a cabinetmaker at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany (1922-25) (where his father, the American painter Lyonel Feininger, was a teacher), and then as an architect at the Staatliche Bauschule Weimar and the Anhaltische Bauschule in Zerbst (1925-28). During his architectural studies, Feininger became interested in photography and in 1927 set up his own darkroom. In 1928 he began working for the architectural firm of Kurt Elster in Dessau, followed by a job as an architect for the Karstadt department store in Hamburg (1930-31). In 1930 Feininger's photographs started to appear in German newspapers and magazines through his association with the cooperative photojournalist agency, Dephot. He spent the next year traveling and photographing architecture in Germany and France (1931-32), then moved to Paris after it became difficult for foreigners to find employment in Germany. He worked for the architect Le Corbusier for 10 months and, when unable to obtain a French work permit, moved to Sweden in 1933. Feininger decided to become a professional photographer and in 1934 opened a studio that specialized in architectural photography. That same year he also published the first of many technical books on photography. After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Feininger left Europe for New York City. He established himself as a freelance photographer, working for the Black Star Photo Agency and Life magazine. In 1943 he became a staff photographer for Life, specializing in images of New York. He continued his association with Life until 1962, when he resigned to focus on his own work. In addition to his career as a photojournalist and architectural photographer, Feininger has devoted much time since the 1950s to nature photography. An interest in ecology led him to begin a photographic study of the natural world and resulted in the book The Anatomy of Nature (1956), followed by Forms of Nature and Life (1966) and Trees (1968). Throughout his career, Feininger has taken part in numerous exhibitions, including the 1929 Film und Foto show in Stuttgart as well as one-artist exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History, New York (1957), the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (1963), and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson (1981).