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Lyonel Feininger
Gelmeroda
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| Lyonel Feininger, 1871–1956 Gelmeroda (1923) Woodcut on paper 37x26.5 cm Acquired by Bayer in 1964 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2007 |
From 1906, Feininger devoted himself wholly to painting. He was inspired by Cubism and the style of the French artist Robert Delaunay. In addition, he concentrated on studying the art of the woodcut. His mainly architectonic compositions became increasingly Cubist. His motifs appear distorted, as if viewed through a prism.
In fact, Feininger called his style Prismism. In 1919, Walter Gropius invited Feininger to teach graphic art and painting at the newly founded Bauhaus in Weimar. The well-known pictures of churches and villages in the environs of Weimar date from this period. Most are named after the villages they depict, such as Gelmeroda, Possendorf, Mellingen and Vollersroda. The church in Gelmeroda became Feininger’s favourite motif. He first painted it in 1906, and it was the inspiration for numerous sketches, watercolours, paintings and woodcuts.
The Bauhaus was closed down in 1932. In 1937, Feininger moved to New York. That same year, the National Socialists seized 400 of his works from German museums. Nineteen pictures were shown in the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich.
Feininger succeeded in making his breakthrough as an artist in America only in 1944, when he had a retrospective in the New York Museum of Modern Art. His teaching, writings and late watercolours paved the way for Abstract Expressionism in the United States.
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