Oil on canvas. Signed in the upper left. Twice signed and dated on the reverse of the stretcher, as well as titled "Seascape" and barely legibly inscribed "A [...?] Sail". 33 x 56.2 cm.
• Lyonel Feininger's seascapes are timeless masterpieces of Modernism. • Pushing the boundaries of abstraction: radical reduction of form and color, saturated with delicate poetry and atmospheric mysticism. • The rhythm of the composition is the pictorial echo of his lifelong love of music. • Since his time at the Bauhaus, music has been a guiding element in Lyonel Feininger's art, as it was for Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. • The work reflects Feininger's memories of the overwhelming natural spectacles and cloud formations in Dzwirzyno (formerly Deep) on the Baltic Sea. Achim Moeller, director of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York - Berlin, confirmed this work's authenticity, it is registered in the archive of the Lyonel Feininger Project under the number 1876-10-04-23. The work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. The work is documented in Achim Moeller's catalogue raisonné of paintings by Lyonel Feininger under the number 490. LITERATURE: Achim Moeller, Seascape/ (Seestück), 1947 (Moeller 490), Lyonel Feininger: The Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, http://feiningerproject.org (last access on October 1, 2024). Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger. Mit einem Oeuvre-Katalog von Julia Feininger, Stuttgart 1959, no. 473 (illustrated in black and white on p. 294). - - Hans Schulz-Vanselow, Lyonel Feininger und Pommern, Kiel 1999, p. 304, (Seascape [Seestück]). Andrea Fromm, Feininger am Bauhaus. Transpositionen in Holzschnitt, Aquarell und Gemälde, in: Andrea Fromm (ed.), Feininger und das Bauhaus. Weimar - Dessau - New York, Hamburg 2009, pp. 11-29, here p. 21 (Seascape).
Feininger. Recent Work 1945-1947, Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York, March 1948, no. 14 (illustrated). Lyonel Feininger. Ölbilder, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Holzschnitte, Galerie Utermann, Dortmund, September 28 - November 5, 1988, no. 3 (illustrated in color). Feininger and the Bauhaus. Weimar - Dessau - New York, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Apolda, September 13 - December 20, 2009, cat. no. 9, pp. 166, 177 (illustrated in color on p. 154)
Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (with the label on the reverse, acquired ca. 1948). Dr. & Mrs. Steven van Riper, Detroit. Private collection, Germany. (Anonymous Sale) Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, Auction 272, Modern Art, June 10, 1988, lot 304. Galerie Utermann, Dortmund. Private collection, Southern Germany. Galerie Maulberger, Munich. Private collection, Southern Germany (acquired from the above in 2008) Family-owned ever since
Timeless modernist masterpieces: Lyonel Feininger's seascapes Across his lifetime, Lyonel Feininger devoted much of his artistic efforts to seascapes. He was among the few modern artists who discovered the great potential that the traditional genre of marine painting offered. Sea, sky, clouds, sun and moon, stars, ships, ocean liners, figures on the beach, harbors, and piers represent a relatively small but ostensibly inexhaustible repertoire from which the artist composed seascapes throughout all his creative phases. Apart from his architectural works, they represent the most important body of works in Lyonel Feininger's entire oeuvre, enduring all stylistic changes and encompassing both his famous prismatic masterpieces of the Bauhaus period and the intimate, atmospheric works of his late work. "Seascape" from 1947 is part of the body of geometric-abstract works Feininger created after returning to the USA. Both the color palette and the motifs are reduced. Only two small figures are positioned on the beach before a motionless sea in the foreground. The cloudy sky dominates everything in front of them. The clash of the elements and the stark contrast between man and nature results in a landscape imbued with tender poetry and atmospheric mysticism despite its radical reduction of form and color. References to Romanticism, such as Caspar David Friedrich's "The Monk by the Sea," can be sensed here, as well as allusions to the art of William Turner. Feininger is said to have visited an exhibition of the English artist's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York the year this work was painted. Clouds in a rhythmic arrangement and the interplay of black-and-white accents reveal a connection to Feininger's love of classical music. The son of a violinist and a singer, his parents had initially wanted him to study music. Feininger remained closely connected to music into old age and composed his own fugues, which are characterized by polyphony and also appear to echo softly in "Seascape". While living in Germany, Feininger showed a keen interest in the impressive weather phenomena and cloud formations over the Baltic Sea and captured them in small-format pencil drawings, the so-called “notes of nature.” He would use them as models for paintings and watercolors many years later. "Seascape" was not executed before 1947 after his return to the USA and is also based on memories of Dzwirzyno (formerly Deep) on the Baltic Sea, as seen in the parallel piers leading into the sea. Decades later, these formative memories of nature were still so present in Feininger's work that he transformed them into transcendental pictorial experiences. Feininger's seascapes owe their timeless effect not only to the beauty and sublime grandeur of the natural spectacle but, above all, to his ability to make an artistic shift from pure observation to the cultivation of a timeless pictorial cosmos in which he visualizes the human impression of nature and the elementary world of thought that goes with it. [AR]
Condition report on request katalogisierung@kettererkunst.de
Lot Details
Oil on canvas. Signed in the upper left. Twice signed and dated on the reverse of the stretcher, as well as titled "Seascape" and barely legibly inscribed "A [...?] Sail". 33 x 56.2 cm.
• Lyonel Feininger's seascapes are timeless masterpieces of Modernism. • Pushing the boundaries of abstraction: radical reduction of form and color, saturated with delicate poetry and atmospheric mysticism. • The rhythm of the composition is the pictorial echo of his lifelong love of music. • Since his time at the Bauhaus, music has been a guiding element in Lyonel Feininger's art, as it was for Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. • The work reflects Feininger's memories of the overwhelming natural spectacles and cloud formations in Dzwirzyno (formerly Deep) on the Baltic Sea. Achim Moeller, director of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York - Berlin, confirmed this work's authenticity, it is registered in the archive of the Lyonel Feininger Project under the number 1876-10-04-23. The work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. The work is documented in Achim Moeller's catalogue raisonné of paintings by Lyonel Feininger under the number 490. LITERATURE: Achim Moeller, Seascape/ (Seestück), 1947 (Moeller 490), Lyonel Feininger: The Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, http://feiningerproject.org (last access on October 1, 2024). Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger. Mit einem Oeuvre-Katalog von Julia Feininger, Stuttgart 1959, no. 473 (illustrated in black and white on p. 294). - - Hans Schulz-Vanselow, Lyonel Feininger und Pommern, Kiel 1999, p. 304, (Seascape [Seestück]). Andrea Fromm, Feininger am Bauhaus. Transpositionen in Holzschnitt, Aquarell und Gemälde, in: Andrea Fromm (ed.), Feininger und das Bauhaus. Weimar - Dessau - New York, Hamburg 2009, pp. 11-29, here p. 21 (Seascape).
Feininger. Recent Work 1945-1947, Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York, March 1948, no. 14 (illustrated). Lyonel Feininger. Ölbilder, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Holzschnitte, Galerie Utermann, Dortmund, September 28 - November 5, 1988, no. 3 (illustrated in color). Feininger and the Bauhaus. Weimar - Dessau - New York, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Apolda, September 13 - December 20, 2009, cat. no. 9, pp. 166, 177 (illustrated in color on p. 154)
Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (with the label on the reverse, acquired ca. 1948). Dr. & Mrs. Steven van Riper, Detroit. Private collection, Germany. (Anonymous Sale) Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, Auction 272, Modern Art, June 10, 1988, lot 304. Galerie Utermann, Dortmund. Private collection, Southern Germany. Galerie Maulberger, Munich. Private collection, Southern Germany (acquired from the above in 2008) Family-owned ever since
Timeless modernist masterpieces: Lyonel Feininger's seascapes Across his lifetime, Lyonel Feininger devoted much of his artistic efforts to seascapes. He was among the few modern artists who discovered the great potential that the traditional genre of marine painting offered. Sea, sky, clouds, sun and moon, stars, ships, ocean liners, figures on the beach, harbors, and piers represent a relatively small but ostensibly inexhaustible repertoire from which the artist composed seascapes throughout all his creative phases. Apart from his architectural works, they represent the most important body of works in Lyonel Feininger's entire oeuvre, enduring all stylistic changes and encompassing both his famous prismatic masterpieces of the Bauhaus period and the intimate, atmospheric works of his late work. "Seascape" from 1947 is part of the body of geometric-abstract works Feininger created after returning to the USA. Both the color palette and the motifs are reduced. Only two small figures are positioned on the beach before a motionless sea in the foreground. The cloudy sky dominates everything in front of them. The clash of the elements and the stark contrast between man and nature results in a landscape imbued with tender poetry and atmospheric mysticism despite its radical reduction of form and color. References to Romanticism, such as Caspar David Friedrich's "The Monk by the Sea," can be sensed here, as well as allusions to the art of William Turner. Feininger is said to have visited an exhibition of the English artist's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York the year this work was painted. Clouds in a rhythmic arrangement and the interplay of black-and-white accents reveal a connection to Feininger's love of classical music. The son of a violinist and a singer, his parents had initially wanted him to study music. Feininger remained closely connected to music into old age and composed his own fugues, which are characterized by polyphony and also appear to echo softly in "Seascape". While living in Germany, Feininger showed a keen interest in the impressive weather phenomena and cloud formations over the Baltic Sea and captured them in small-format pencil drawings, the so-called “notes of nature.” He would use them as models for paintings and watercolors many years later. "Seascape" was not executed before 1947 after his return to the USA and is also based on memories of Dzwirzyno (formerly Deep) on the Baltic Sea, as seen in the parallel piers leading into the sea. Decades later, these formative memories of nature were still so present in Feininger's work that he transformed them into transcendental pictorial experiences. Feininger's seascapes owe their timeless effect not only to the beauty and sublime grandeur of the natural spectacle but, above all, to his ability to make an artistic shift from pure observation to the cultivation of a timeless pictorial cosmos in which he visualizes the human impression of nature and the elementary world of thought that goes with it. [AR]
Condition report on request katalogisierung@kettererkunst.de
Lyonel Feininger 
