FEININGER, LYONEL

fīˈnĭngər, 1871–1956, American painter and illustrator, b. New York City. Feininger studied painting in Berlin, Hamburg, and Paris. He was an illustrator and caricaturist for several periodicals in Paris and in Germany and had a weekly comic page (1906–7) in the Chicago Tribune before he turned to easel painting in 1907. He exhibited with the Blaue Reiter group and taught at the Bauhaus in Germany (1919–32). His canvases appeared in the so-called degenerate art exhibition of 1933. He returned permanently to the United States in 1937, taught at Mills College, and exhibited extensively. Feininger was fascinated by sailboats and skyscrapers, themes that appear in many of his oils and watercolors. He developed a delicate geometric style with interlocking translucent planes, suggestive of both light rays and architectural forms. Feininger is represented in New York City in the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum, and his works are also included in other leading collections.

Bibliography

See his reminiscences, ed. by J. L. Ness (1974); definitive catalog of his graphic work by L. E. Prasse (1972); biographies by H. Hess (1961) and E. Schuyer (1964); study by T. L. Feininger (1965); The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger (1994), ed. by B. Blackbeard.

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