Lyonel Feininger

Wilhelm Schön, Sosnowiec, Poland & Germany
Private Collection, Frankfurt
Acquired from the above by the father of the present owner in 2002

Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, New York, 1961, no. 213, illustrated p. 267

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate, although slightly richer in the original.
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Painted in 1920, the present work dates from Feininger's years spent in Weimar, where he joined Walter Gropius shortly after the Bauhaus school was founded in 1919. During his Bauhaus period, Feininger was in charge of the graphic workshop, and his work during his time focused primarily on prints, mostly woodcuts. Indeed, Feininger's woodcut The Cathedral featured on the cover of the Bauhaus manifesto, published in 1919. Largely preoccupied with his graphic work, he produced a relatively small number of oils, and his paintings of this period reflect a strong influence of the woodcut technique (fig. 1). This new stylistic shift in the artist's work is reflected in the strong linearity and the monochrome flat colour planes of Battle Fleet. The sharp horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines intersect and combine in such a way to create a flat, yet dynamic composition. The theme of battleships was probably inspired by the war that had ended only two years earlier, however Feininger rendered the subject with a characteristic lightness, transforming it into a playful image. 

 

 

Fig. 1, Lyonel Feininger, The Privateer I, 1918, woodcut