Lyonel Feininger

Mrs. Anne Klestadt, Düsseldorf

Mr. & Mrs. Gerald Jonas, Cincinnati (by descent from the above and sold: Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, May 11, 1977, lot 82)

Private Collection, London (sold: Sotheby's, London, November 29, 1988, lot 69)

Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Cincinnati Modern Art Society, Cincinnati Art Museum, Fourth Biennial Exhibition: Acquisitions of Modern Art Society, 1947

Cincinnati Modern Art Society, Cincinnati Art Museum, Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, 1949, no. 16

Cleveland Museum of Art, The Work of Lyonel Feininger, 1951, no. 3, illustrated in the catalogue

Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati Art Museum, Modern Art in Evolution 1900-1956, 1956, no. 13

Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati Art Museum, An American Viewpoint: Realism in Twentieth Century American Painting, 1957, illustrated in the catalogue

New York, M. Knoedler & Co., Cincinnati Collects: An Exhibition of Selected 20th Century Works of Art from Private Collections Presented for the Benefit of the Endowment Fund of The Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, 1961, no. 14, illustrated in the catalogue

Detroit Institute of Arts, Lyonel Feininger: The Formative Years, 1964, no. 134, illustrated on the cover

Pasadena Art Museum, Lyonel Feininger 1871-1956: A Memorial Exhibition, 1966, no. 9

Hamilton, New York, The Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University & Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas at Austin, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Works from a British Collection, 1986, no. 11, illustrated in the catalogue

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Lyonel Feininger, At the Edge of the World, 2011, no. 60, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, London, 1961, no. 82, illustrated p. 255

J.C. Jensen, "Feiningers Geographie", Lyonel Feininger: Gemälde, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, Kiel, 1982, pp. 29-31

Ernst Jünger, On the Marble Cliffs, Harmondsworth, 1983, illustrated in color on the cover

Werner Timm, "Feininger an der Ostseeküste", Lyonel Feininger: Von Gelmeroda nach Manhattan, Retrospektive der Gemälde, Berlin, 1998, pp. 301-309

Please contact the Impressionist and Modern Art Department at (212) 606-7360 for the condition report for this lot.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Study, on the Cliffs exemplifies Feininger's perspectival inventiveness at the height of his involvement with the German Expressionist group Die Brücke in 1912. During the summer of 1912 that Feininger refined his artistic style, devising innovative pictorial representations of the natural world. Feininger's new approach referenced the aesthetic of French Cubism, which had taken hold of the avant-garde across Europe, but applied his reshuffling of space to grander subjects in an attempt to synthesize the rhythms, forms, perspectives and colors of his surrounding environment.

Feininger explained the stylization of this painting and others he did that year in the following terms: "1912 I worked entirely independently, striving to wrest the secrets of atmospheric perspective and light and shade gradation, likewise rhythm and balance between various objects, from Nature. My 'cubism', to so miscall it, for it is the reverse of the French cubists' aims, is based upon the principle of monumentality, concentration to the absolutest extreme possible, of my visions.... My pictures are ever nearing closer the Synthesis of the fugee.... My 'cubism' (again, falsely so-called); call it rather, if it must have a name, 'prism-ism'" (op. cit., p. 56).

Please note the present work has been requested for the forthcoming exhibition Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) at the Fundación Juan March, Madrid which will be held from October 14, 2016 to January 15, 2017.