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Lyonel Feininger
1871–1956
BirthplaceNew York, New York, United States of America
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyClosely identified with modernist movements in Germany, where he spent much of his career, Lyonel Feininger created visionary paintings and prints that drew on two important modern art movements of the early-twentieth century: cubism, in which ordinary objects are presented as fragmented into series of component two-dimensional forms, and expressionism, in which the use of color and form express subjective emotional and spiritual experience. Feininger was born in New York City, the offspring of professional musicians who had immigrated to the United States from Germany. A talented violinist whose art was deeply informed by his musical training, Feininger was taken to Germany at the age of sixteen to study music. He turned instead to the study of art and remained in Europe for half a century, although he always identified himself as an American. Early in his career, Feininger supported his family as a cartoonist and caricaturist, but between 1906 and 1908, while living in Paris, he began to devote himself to painting and printmaking. With their exaggerated and distorted proportions and perspective and fantastic color, Feininger’s early works—mostly urban scenes—reflect the satirical, politically charged bent of his work as a draftsman.
Cubism, to which Feininger was first exposed in Paris in 1911, offered a new method for transforming objective reality that allowed him to capture the emotional, often pointedly nostalgic effect he sought. The expressive nature of his experimental work introduced Feininger into Berlin’s avant-garde, and by 1913 he was exhibiting with the expressionist group known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), whose members included Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), Paul Klee (1879–1940), and Franz Marc (1880–1916). In 1919, Feininger was one of the first artists invited by Walter Gropius (1883–1969) to join the new, experimental design school and community known as the Bauhaus, in Weimar (later Dessau). Because of his identification with such progressive movements, Feininger was branded a “degenerate artist” by the Nazis after their rise to power in the mid-1930s. He returned to the United States in 1937 and settled in New York City the following year. Although American critics had considered Feininger a German artist when he began exhibiting in the United States in the 1920s, he was embraced as an American after his return. In his last decades, Feininger taught art widely and was honored with a number of awards and exhibitions in his native country.
Cubism, to which Feininger was first exposed in Paris in 1911, offered a new method for transforming objective reality that allowed him to capture the emotional, often pointedly nostalgic effect he sought. The expressive nature of his experimental work introduced Feininger into Berlin’s avant-garde, and by 1913 he was exhibiting with the expressionist group known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), whose members included Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), Paul Klee (1879–1940), and Franz Marc (1880–1916). In 1919, Feininger was one of the first artists invited by Walter Gropius (1883–1969) to join the new, experimental design school and community known as the Bauhaus, in Weimar (later Dessau). Because of his identification with such progressive movements, Feininger was branded a “degenerate artist” by the Nazis after their rise to power in the mid-1930s. He returned to the United States in 1937 and settled in New York City the following year. Although American critics had considered Feininger a German artist when he began exhibiting in the United States in the 1920s, he was embraced as an American after his return. In his last decades, Feininger taught art widely and was honored with a number of awards and exhibitions in his native country.