Max Westfeld, descendant of a wealthy family, developed into a successful painter around 1910 in Düsseldorf. His oeuvre includes impressionistic floral still lifes, landscapes and figures, whose brilliant use of color immediately catches the eye. Westfeld was also in demand as a portrait painter until he had to flee the Nazis in 1940 and joined his brother, who had lived in Nashville in the United States since 1906. Virtually nothing is known of his work from that late period.