Lot Essay
Lyonel Feininger was born in New York and was sixteen years old in 1887 when his parents took him to their native Germany where he completed his education and became, at the turn of the century, an international cartoonist contributing to German, French and American newspapers.
Later he exhibited with the Blaue Reiter group and was close to artists of the Brücke, such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, although remaining essentially aloof from Expressionist groups. At the end of 1935, Feininger received an invitation to teach at Mills College Oakland, California on a 1936 summer course. He arrived in New York in May, 1936. He returned home to Berlin at the end of the year but had determined to make America his home and finally moved with his family in June, 1937.
Hans Hess discusses this particular painting:
The remaining paintings of Feininger's last German
period were all painted in the winter of 1936-37.
In Yellow Village Church III one can see a
beginning of a new striving for monumentality.
The planes are fewer, the shapes simpler, the
colors stronger. The prismatic interpenetration
of space can now be achieved differently by the
painter. Color takes the place of line or plane; a
superimposition of color now does the duty that
formerly was done by imposition of a plane. There
are no less movement and depth, but they are
achieved by the means available to an older artist,
who has no need to explore the forms but has them
in his grasp. The statement becomes simpler and
more summary. The color plays a twofold role - it
makes the shapes, and it also extends them. Paint
is used more thickly, so that a layer of one color
on top of another, usually a wildly unexpected
combination, can play an independent part.
Black begins to make an appearance. In a manner
characteristic of Feininger's contradictory nature,
he used black for a light as well as a dark color.
Here it is used as the color of something that is
dark, but frequently the brightest light, the sun,
will be given in black. (H. Hess, op. cit.,
pp. 135-146)
Achim Moeller will include this painting as no. 399 in his forthcoming Feininger catalogue raisonné.
Later he exhibited with the Blaue Reiter group and was close to artists of the Brücke, such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, although remaining essentially aloof from Expressionist groups. At the end of 1935, Feininger received an invitation to teach at Mills College Oakland, California on a 1936 summer course. He arrived in New York in May, 1936. He returned home to Berlin at the end of the year but had determined to make America his home and finally moved with his family in June, 1937.
Hans Hess discusses this particular painting:
The remaining paintings of Feininger's last German
period were all painted in the winter of 1936-37.
In Yellow Village Church III one can see a
beginning of a new striving for monumentality.
The planes are fewer, the shapes simpler, the
colors stronger. The prismatic interpenetration
of space can now be achieved differently by the
painter. Color takes the place of line or plane; a
superimposition of color now does the duty that
formerly was done by imposition of a plane. There
are no less movement and depth, but they are
achieved by the means available to an older artist,
who has no need to explore the forms but has them
in his grasp. The statement becomes simpler and
more summary. The color plays a twofold role - it
makes the shapes, and it also extends them. Paint
is used more thickly, so that a layer of one color
on top of another, usually a wildly unexpected
combination, can play an independent part.
Black begins to make an appearance. In a manner
characteristic of Feininger's contradictory nature,
he used black for a light as well as a dark color.
Here it is used as the color of something that is
dark, but frequently the brightest light, the sun,
will be given in black. (H. Hess, op. cit.,
pp. 135-146)
Achim Moeller will include this painting as no. 399 in his forthcoming Feininger catalogue raisonné.