An American who was best known in Germany where he spent most of his career, Frank Herrmann created work that embraced Beaux-Arts Academic Realism to Impressionism to the New Objectivity.

He was a founding member of two important groups of the German avant-garde centered in Munich: the Munich Secessionist Group , SEMA, that included his friend, Paul Klee, and the New Secession of German Artists, led by Wassilj Kandinsky. Herrmann was also closely associated with Alfred Stieglitz, with whom he had gone to school including college, and who became a leading avant-garde art influence in New York City. They traveled together in Paris during the 1890s in Europe.

In Germany, Herrmann early painted in the style of Lyric Abstraction, using primarily gouache.

In 1895, Herrmann settled in Munich and remained there for the next 24 years. There he earned a reputation for his impressionist landscape paintings and was dubbed "the tulip field painter". He became a central figure among German expressionist painters and other intellectuals, holding weekly meetings of these people at his mansion.

Having been one of the few Americans to remain in Germany during World War I, he returned to the United States in 1919 and lived the last part of his life in his family mansion in Elberon, New Jersey. He also traveled including to Lake George at the invitation of Steiglitz and O'Keeffe, and west where he visited California, Arizona and New Mexico.

He allowed his work only limited exposure in the United States, but at age 61 had a solo exhibition in New York City at Babcock Galleries. His primary representative was J.B. Neumann's New Art Circle, and his work was usually grouped with New Objective painters that included Max Beckmann.

Herrmann had a daughter, Eve Herrmann, who was an expatriate caricaturist. Very prolific, producing thousands of works, he often signed his work J.S. Herrmann. Many of his paintings were destroyed during the World Wars.

Source:
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art
Correspondance with Falk relative to the Post-Germany travels

Frank S. Herrmann (1866-1942) studied at the Munich Academy at the end of the 19th century. He was a co-founder of two major groups of the German Avant-garde in Munich, the Secession group SEMA, which included Paul Klee, and the Neue Sezession Deutscher Künstler, led by Wassily Kandinsky.

Herrmann also maintained close contact with Alfred Stieglitz, with whom he had gone to school and who had become a pioneer of avant-garde in New York City. Together they made travels through Europe in the 1890s. Herrmann’s works show both influences of Academic Realism and Impressionism, as well as New Objectivity.