His paintings feature generic-looking figures, presented in strict profile or in stiff, frontal poses.
In 1929 he began collaboration with Seiwert and Walter Stern on the publication of "a-z", the journal of the Cologne Progressives art group.
He was among the many German artists whose works were condemned as degenerate art when the Nazis took power in 1933.
He died in Cologne in 1936 at the age of 40.
Public collections holding works by Heinrich Hoerle include Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kölnisches Stadtmuseum; Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf; The Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal; and the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.