Kienerk started his artistic evolution receiving training in Florence from Adriano Cecioni, Telemaco Signorini and Silvestro Lega. His first landscape paintings reveal the influence of the Macchiaioli but also of the French Impressionism. Later he moved towards Divisionism and Symbolism. In 1905 Kienerk was appointed to the chair of the civic school of painting in Pavia, where he lived until 1938.