Promenade

Details

LYONEL FEININGER (1871-1956)
Promenade
signed, dated and inscribed Lyonel Feininger Promenade 1914 (along the lower edge); signed again with the artist's initials and inscribed X L.F. (lower left); with the estate stamp FEININGER ESTATE (on the reverse)
pen and India ink on paper
30,8 x 23,5 cm. (12 1⁄8 x 9 ¼ in.)
Executed in 1914

Provenance

The artist's estate.
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York; acquired from the above in September 1971.
Galerie Otto Stangl, Munich; acquired from the above in June 1973; Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, 6 June 1974, lot 457.
Donald Thomas Bergen (1930-2009), London; acquired at the above sale.
Private collection, United Kingdom; Christie's, London, 2 December 1980, lot 240.
Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg.
Acquired from the above in October 1989; then by descent to the present owners.

Exhibited

Dresden, Galerie Emil Richter, Lyonel Feininger: Sonder-Ausstellung seiner Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen und Holzschnitte, September 1919, no. 141 (with incorrect medium).
Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger: Gemälde, Graphik, XXIX. Sonder-Ausstellung, November 1919 - January 1920, no. 165.
Chicago, Allan Frumkin Gallery, Lyonel Feininger: Etchings, Drypoints, Lithographs, Drawings, 1902-1924, December 1974, no. 28 (with incorrect medium and dimensions).
Notre Dame, Art Gallery, University of Notre Dame, German Expressionist Drawings from the Collection of D. Thomas Bergen, May - June 1977, no. 10, pp. 16-17 & 32 (ill.; with incorrect medium and dimensions).
Kiel, Kunsthalle, Lyonel Feininger: Gemälde, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, June - August 1982, no. 33, p. 93 (ill.; with incorrect medium and dimensions).
Lugano, Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lyonel Feininger: La variante tematica e tecnica nello sviluppo del processo creativo, September - November 1991, no. VI.3, p. 91 (ill.; with incorrect medium and dimensions).
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Lyonel Feininger: Die Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, January - April 1998, no. 48, pp. 83 & 211-212 (ill.; with incorrect medium); then Tübingen, Kunsthalle, April - June 1998.
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Aus der Werkstatt des Künstlers – Druckgraphik und vorbereitende Zeichnungen der Sammlung Hegewisch, March 1999 - October 2000, pp. 56 & 101 (ill.; with incorrect medium).
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Lyonel Feininger: Menschenbilder - Eine unbekannte Welt, October 2003 - February 2004, no. 90, pp. 95 & 151 (ill.; with incorrect medium and dimensions).
Yokosuka, Yokosuka Museum of Art, Lyonel Feininger: Retrospective in Japan, August - October 2008, no. 60, pp. 82 & 195 (ill.; with incorrect medium); then Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, October - December 2008; and Sendai, The Miyagi Museum of Art, January - March 2009.
Ingelheim am Rhein, Museum Altes Rathaus, Lyonel Feininger, Alfred Kubin - Eine Künstlerfreundschaft, May - August 2015, p. 122 (ill.; with incorrect medium); then Vienna, Albertina, September 2015 - January 2016.
Apolda, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Traumstadt - Lyonel Feininger und seine Dörfer, September - December 2019, no. 54, p. 101 (ill.; with incorrect medium).

Further details

Achim Moeller, Managing Principal of The Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, has confirmed the authenticity of this work. The work is registered in the archives of The Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York - Berlin with the no. 2031-11-26-25.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Zack Boutwood Cataloguer

zboutwood@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7389 2025

Lot Essay

Dating from 1914, Promenade marks a pivotal moment in Lyonel Feininger’s career, when he forged a fully synthesised pictorial language at the intersection of Cubism and German Expressionism. Informed by his exposure to Cubist innovations in Paris and rooted in the expressive and spiritual concerns of his German background, the work belongs to the decisive phase in which Feininger turned away from caricature toward his mature artistic idiom. Here, his formal vocabulary coalesces in fractured planes, rhythmic diagonals, and compressed architectural and spatial elements that would remain central to his oeuvre.

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