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Lot Essay
A student of the violin, Lyonel Feininger arrived in Hamburg, Germany, in 1887 to study music. Soon after his arrival, at the age of sixteen, he changed his career to art and entered the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Art) there. After further study at the Academy in Berlin, he became a caricaturist and illustrator for popular publications, continuing his painting in the evenings. In 1911, during a visit to Paris, he was in contact with the painter Robert Delaunay and the Cubist artists who were to have such an impact on his work. Two years later, Franz Marc was sufficiently impressed by Feininger’s work to invite him to exhibit with the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group in the First German Autumn Salon in Berlin.
His introduction to woodcut, and to printmaking in general, had begun in 1905 through Julia Berg, a friend and art student who later became his wife. In a letter of November 1 of that year he wrote to her: “Ina short time you can learn many valuable things in regard to technique and methods, all of which you will share with me later, won't you? have a great desire to make lithographs... .to learn etching also. . above all I want to do old towns...” (Prasse, p. 29). This desire reached fruition when, at the age of thirty-five, Feininger produced his first lithographs and drypoints. His oeuvre would, over the next fifty years, multiply to the impressive total of 320 woodcuts, 20 lithographs, and 65 etchings.
Das Tor was made during Feininger’s tenure as head of the graphic workshop of the Bauhaus at Weimar (1919-1924). He had turned to the woodcut medium during the war, when painting materials were scarce in Germany and his copper etching plates had been confiscated. The new technique, one of the simplest and most direct of graphic media, suited his needs and temperament well. Feininger preferred to print all his proofs by hand, pressing with his palm the paper laid on the inked block and creating lightly printed, slightly transparent impressions. Most of the papers he chose were fine handmade types, particularly the soft, absorbent Japanese papers, which were unusually receptive to the ink.
First the subject of an etching with drypoint in 1912, Das Tor presents one of Feininger's favorite themes: an old town, here scintillating with sunlight. As dynamic rays of light, inspired by Futurism, give life to the inanimate scene, the rapid alternation of white surfaces and deep cast shadows produces an optical dazzle.
Growing up in New York City, Feininger was awed by the height of the buildings and their grand scale. It was an impression not forgotten: his cartoons and illustrations often reveal an exaggerated disproportion between the scale of figures and buildings. In Das Tor our perspective seems to be that of one standing below the scene, straining our necks to encompass the whole view. From this odd angle, what is above us seems to lose focus, splintered by the sunlight.
Nancy Green, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p.49
His introduction to woodcut, and to printmaking in general, had begun in 1905 through Julia Berg, a friend and art student who later became his wife. In a letter of November 1 of that year he wrote to her: “Ina short time you can learn many valuable things in regard to technique and methods, all of which you will share with me later, won't you? have a great desire to make lithographs... .to learn etching also. . above all I want to do old towns...” (Prasse, p. 29). This desire reached fruition when, at the age of thirty-five, Feininger produced his first lithographs and drypoints. His oeuvre would, over the next fifty years, multiply to the impressive total of 320 woodcuts, 20 lithographs, and 65 etchings.
Das Tor was made during Feininger’s tenure as head of the graphic workshop of the Bauhaus at Weimar (1919-1924). He had turned to the woodcut medium during the war, when painting materials were scarce in Germany and his copper etching plates had been confiscated. The new technique, one of the simplest and most direct of graphic media, suited his needs and temperament well. Feininger preferred to print all his proofs by hand, pressing with his palm the paper laid on the inked block and creating lightly printed, slightly transparent impressions. Most of the papers he chose were fine handmade types, particularly the soft, absorbent Japanese papers, which were unusually receptive to the ink.
First the subject of an etching with drypoint in 1912, Das Tor presents one of Feininger's favorite themes: an old town, here scintillating with sunlight. As dynamic rays of light, inspired by Futurism, give life to the inanimate scene, the rapid alternation of white surfaces and deep cast shadows produces an optical dazzle.
Growing up in New York City, Feininger was awed by the height of the buildings and their grand scale. It was an impression not forgotten: his cartoons and illustrations often reveal an exaggerated disproportion between the scale of figures and buildings. In Das Tor our perspective seems to be that of one standing below the scene, straining our necks to encompass the whole view. From this odd angle, what is above us seems to lose focus, splintered by the sunlight.
Nancy Green, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p.49