Lyonel Feininger
1871 - New York - 1956
Selected Works
Vita
1871Lyonel (Léonell) Feininger is born in New York on 17 July, the son of the German violinist Karl Feininger and the singer Elizabeth Cecilia (née Lutz).
1887
Moves to Germany, where he takes drawing lessons at the Hamburg Trade School.
1888
Feininger moves to Berlin and passes the entrance examination to the Royal Academy.
1889
First commissions as a caricaturist for the weekly newspaper "Humoristische Blätter".
1890
At his father's request, he attended the Collège Saint Servais in Liège, where he discovered his enthusiasm for the architecture of old cities.
1891
He returns to the Royal Academy in Berlin.
1892
Feininger takes his first trip to Rügen. The Baltic coast, which he visits regularly from then on, inspires him throughout his entire creative career. He leaves the academy and moves to Paris. There he studies at the Académie Colarossi.
1893
Feininger returns to Berlin and works again as a caricaturist for various newspapers.
1901
Marriage to Clara Fürst. The marriage produces two daughters.
1903
Feininger meets Julia Berg (née Lilienfeld). Both separate from their spouses.
1906
Feininger goes to Paris with Berg and studies again in the Colarossi studio. Birth of his son Andreas.
1908
Marriage to Berg in London. The marriage produces two more sons. Returns to Berlin.
1909
Feininger becomes a member of the "Berlin Secession".
1911
He shows six paintings at the "Salon des Indépendants" in Paris, where he meets Robert Delaunay and French Cubism. Under this influence, he created the works of "Prisma-ism" in the following period.
1912
Contact with the artists of the Blue Rider, but he does not join them. The architecture of small German towns becomes the subject of his compositions. Beginning of his friendship with Alfred Kubin (1877-1959).
1913
Leaves the "Berlin Secession". On Kubin's recommendation, Franz Marc invites him to take part in the "First German Autumn Salon".
1917
First major solo exhibition in Herwarth Walden's (1878-1941) gallery "Der Sturm".
1918
Due to the difficult situation as an American citizen at the end of the First World War, he retires with his family to Braunlage (Harz).
1919
He signs the programme of the "Labour Council for Art", which attempts to extend the November Revolution of 1918 to the field of art. Appointment as a master at the State Bauhaus Weimar.
1924
Feininger joins forces with Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Alexej von Jawlensky to form the exhibition group "The Blue Four"
1925
First exhibition of the "Blue Four" in New York.
1926
Feininger moves with the Bauhaus to Dessau, but is released from his teaching duties.
1929
He is commissioned by the city of Halle to paint a view of the city. The result is a series of eleven pictures.
1932
Closure of the Bauhaus in Dessau
1936
Called to teach at Mills College in Oakland (California). He returns to Berlin at the end of the year.
1937
Due to the political situation in Germany, he moves to New York for good. The National Socialists defame Feininger as a "degenerate artist" and confiscate 400 of his works from German museums. 19 paintings are shown in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition.
1939
Feininger designs murals for the World's Fair in New York. While his first paintings in exile were still strongly characterised by memories of his native Germany, the skyscrapers of Manhattan became his new motif in the following years.
1950
He designs a mural for the passenger liner "Constitution". Watercolours now become increasingly important in his oeuvre.
Awards
Solo exhibitions (selection)
Group exhibitions (selection)
Collections
About the artist
Lyonel Feininger was born Leónell Charles Feininger in New York City (USA) on 17 July 1871. His parents were musicians; his father, Karl (Charles), from Baden, was a violinist and composer, while his mother, Elizabeth Cecilia, née Lutz, was a pianist and singer. In 1887, the 16-year-old Feininger travelled to Germany, where his parents wanted him to perfect his violin playing in Leipzig. Initially living with a relative in Hamburg, Feininger took drawing lessons at the Hamburg Trade School. He was determined to become a painter: "(...) life would not be worth living if I could not follow this profession (...)" he wrote from Hamburg on 27 February 1888. In the same year, Feininger moved to Berlin, where he began studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts (until 1890). In Berlin, he began drawing caricatures and working as a cartoonist for newspapers and magazines. A stay of several months (1890) in Liège, where Feininger attended the Collège St Servais at his father's request, awakened his interest in ancient architecture. After his return to Berlin (1891), Feininger first studied at Adolf Schlabitz's art school and then again at the Academy of Fine Arts. After studying in Paris (1892/93) and attending the Academie Colarossi, Feininger returned to Berlin. His acquaintance (1905) with Julia Berg, née Lilienfeld, whom he married in 1908, led to his first stay in Weimar (1906). Feininger travelled to Paris again in 1906. Here he produced his first paintings in 1907. After his return to Berlin, Feininger settled in Berlin-Zehlendorf (until 1919). In 1911, he first encountered the works of French Cubism in Paris, which had a lasting influence on his artistic work. Due to his love of Weimar and its surroundings, Feininger rented an additional studio here in 1913. The first paintings of the village church of Gelmeroda are created. In the same year, Feininger was invited to take part in the First German Autumn Salon, organised by Franz Marc, August Macke and Herwarth Walden, the founder of the Berlin gallery "Der Sturm". In 1917, Feininger has his first solo exhibition at the Sturm Gallery. In 1918, Feininger began to create his first woodcuts, which, alongside painting and watercolour, became an important means of artistic expression for the artist, and in 1919 he was appointed as the first master at the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, founded by Walter Gropius. His woodcut of a cathedral with three stars (1919) serves as the title of the programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus. In 1921, Feininger became master of form at the Bauhaus print shop and in this function was responsible for the publication of the Bauhaus Weimar print editions (e.g. Neue europäische Graphik - Erste Mappe, Meister des Staatlichen Bauhauses Weimar, 1921). Together with Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej Jawlensky and Paul Klee, he founded the group "The Blue Four" in 1924, which was intended as an exhibition group. In the USA, the four painters are represented as a group by Emmy Galka Scheyer. In 1926, Feininger moved with the State Bauhaus to Dessau, where he was released from his teaching duties by Gropius, but remained as artist-in-residence until 1932. During these years, he spent time in Halle (Saale), which led to a series of 11 paintings created between 1929 and 1931 (e.g. "Marienkirche von Westen", Halle, 1930, oil/painting, Halle, Kunstmuseum Moritzburg). Feininger received his first museum retrospective in 1931 (Essen, Museum Folkwang). After the closure of the Bauhaus in 1932 by the National Socialist municipal council in Dessau, Feininger initially stays in Deep (Pomerania), then with friends in Berlin. In 1934, he and his wife Julia moved into a flat in Berlin-Siemensstadt. In 1936, Feininger accepted an invitation from art historian Alfred Neumeyer to give a lecture at Mills College in Oakland, California. Feininger returned to the USA for a few months for the first time in decades. Although his works are defamed by the National Socialists in Germany as "degenerate", Feininger returns to Germany once again. In 1937, over 550 of his works were confiscated from German public collections. Feininger decides to leave Germany and accepts a second invitation to Mills College in Oakland in 1937, where he holds a summer course. Feininger and his wife Julia finally settled in New York City (235 East 22nd Street). The numerous nature notes he made at the Baltic Sea and around Weimar served him to process the memories of his stays there into watercolours and paintings. In 1942, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, purchased Feininger's painting "Gelmeroda XIII" (1936, oil on canvas). In 1944 Feininger was given a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in 1951 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Feininger dies on 13 January 1956.