Lyonel Feininger was born to parents of German descent and grew up in New York City, but moved to Berlin in 1887 to study at the Königliche Akademie Berlin under Ernst Hancke, art schools in Berlin with Karl Schlabitz, and in Paris with sculptor Filippo Colarossi. He started as a caricaturist for several magazines including Harper's Round Table, Harper's Young People, Humoristische Blätter, Lustige Blätter, Das Narrenschiff, Berliner Tageblatt and Ulk.

Feininger married Clara Fürst, daughter of the painter Gustav Fürst, and they had two daughters. He also had several children with Julia Berg whom he later married.

The artist is represented with drawings at the exhibitions of the annual Berlin Secession in the years 1901 through 1903.

Feininger started working as a fine artist at the age of 36, after having worked as a commercial caricaturist for 20 years for various newspapers and magazines in both the USA and Germany. He was a member of the Berliner Sezession in 1909, and he was associated with expressionist group Die Brücke, the Novembergruppe, Gruppe 1919, the Blaue Reiter circle and The Blue Four. He designed the cover for the Bauhaus 1919 manifesto: an expressionist woodcut 'cathedral'. He taught at the Bauhaus for several years. Among the students who attended his workshops were Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack (German/Australian (1893 – 1965), Hans Friedrich Grohs (German 1892 - 1981) and Margarete Koehler-Bittkow (German/American, 1898 – 1964)

When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, the situation became unbearable for Feininger and his wife, who was partly Jewish. They moved to America after his work was exhibited in the 'degenerate art' (Entartete Kunst) in 1936, but before the 1937 exhibition in Munich.

Feininger was one of the very few fine artists also to draw comic strips as a cartoonist. His short lived Chicago Tribune comic strips, The Kin-der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie's World, were noted for their fey humor and graphic experimentation.

Feininger also had intermittent activity as a pianist and composer, with several piano compositions and fugues for organ extant.

His son, Andreas Feininger, became famous as a photographer of New York City.