Bauknecht trained in Stuttgart under the guidance of the Jugendstil painter Bernhard Pankok. In 1910 he fell gravely ill with tuberculosis and, like Kirchner, moved to Davos in Switzerland to recover. From 1916 onwards, Bauknecht exhibited frequently in Davos with many of his most striking colourist pictures depicting the local mountains and peasants working in the fields in their shadow. In 1924 he exhibited in the Neue Deutsche Kunst exhibition in Stuttgart alongside Dix, Heckel, Kirchner, Klee and Schmidt-Rottluff.