 In 1893, he left Compton & Sons and joined Woodward and Tiernan, one of the largest printing concerns in the world at the time.In search of something more than the practical experience he was receiving at the lithography companies, Berninghaus attended night classes at the School of Fine Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and sketched and painted in his spare time.By 1899, Berninghaus held his first one-man show, and thus had developed a reputation as an artist.