His working name is taken from the altar paintings he created, formerly in Tennenbach Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in the Black Forest in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
[1] 15 small panels survive of a presumed 16, 12 in the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg and three in the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe.
[2] The Master of the Tennenbach Altar appears also to be linked stylistically with Jost Haller, a painter who was active up to about 1485 in Strasbourg and Saarbrücken.
[3] Like Haller he still uses the "soft style", as it is called, of International Gothic art, but also shows the influence of contemporary Dutch Gothic painting, as for example the works of Robert Campin and his pupil Rogier van der Weyden which show the beginnings of realistic depiction of detail.
[4] Characteristic of the figures in the paintings of the Master of the Tennenbach Altar are their "almost childishly soft features".