Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World

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Born and raised in New York, Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956) moved at the age of sixteen to Germany, where he became one of the leading practitioners of German Expressionism and the Bauhaus. In the late 1930s, when the Nazi campaign against modern art forced him to flee back to New York after an absence of fifty years, his marriage of abstraction and recognizable imagery made him a beloved artist in the United States. Long recognized as a major figure of the Bauhaus, Feininger is universally lauded for his romantic, crystalline depictions of village churches and seascapes. Less well known are the whimsical aspects of his work: his pioneering Chicago Sunday Tribune comic strips; his figurative, Expressionist compositions; his photographs; and his miniature hand-carved, painted wooden figures and buildings, known as City at the Edge of the World. This retrospective is the first in Feininger’s native country in more than forty years, the first in New York in more than sixty-five years, and the first ever to include all aspects of his art. A monograph accompanying the exhibition features an essay covering the full breadth of Feininger’s career, placing his biography and art within the context of art history and politics, tracing his relationship with groups and institutions that defined the development of modern art, including Cubism, the Blaue Reiter, the Blue Four, the Bauhaus, and Black Mountain College. Additional essays focus on his comics, his photographs, his musical compositions and their relationship to his visual art, and his reputation in Germany. The show will travel to The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, January 16-May 13, 2012. This exhibition is curated by Barbara Haskell, with the assistance of Sasha Nicholas. IMAGE SHOWN: Lyonel Feininger Architecture II (The Man from Potin) [Architektur II], 1921. Oil on canvas, 39 8/10 x 31 7/10 in (101 x 80.5 cm).Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid © Lyonel Feininger Family, LLC./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photograph © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid