LYONEL FEININGER | The Tall Man

Alois J. Schardt, Los Angeles Private Collection (by descent from the above)

Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York

Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above in 1994)

Thence by descent to the present owner

New York, Achim Moeller Fine Art, 19th and 20th Century Masters: A Private Viewing of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 1989, illustrated in colour in the catalogue Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Lyonel Feininger: Menschenbilder. Eine unbekannte Welt, 2003-04, no. 58, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Ingelheim am Rhein, Altes Rathaus & Vienna, Albertina, Lyonel Feininger / Alfred Kubin: Eine Künstlerfreundschaft, 2015-16, illustrated in colour in the catalogue and detail illustrated in colour on the catalogue dust-jacket

Executed in 1909, The Tall Man exemplifies the crisp aesthetic and sharp satirical eye that characterises Feininger’s early works. Through its incongruous alterations in scale The Tall Man is evocative of a delightfully capricious spirit that would seldom feature in his later works. Having arrived in Germany from America in 1894, aged sixteen, Feininger developed a successful career as a caricaturist. He was an excellent draughtsman and between 1901 and 1930 he exhibited numerous drawings at the Berlin Secession, becoming a member in 1909. The turning point of his artistic career, however, was to come in 1906 when he left Berlin for a prolonged stay in Paris. Feininger’s artistic focus changed as he sought, with the encouragement of his soon-to-be second wife Julia Berg, to create an art free from the demands of commercialism. Paris allowed Feininger complete immersion within the community of vanguard artists and in 1907 he adapted one of his published cartoons entitled Les regrets de M. Hearst into the painting Der weisse Mann (fig. 1). The celebrated work, now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, marked his emergence as an artist of major consequence. Compositionally similar to Der weisse Mann, the present work also takes the subject of the walking man as its primary theme. With his elongated form, the protagonist dominates the composition and looms over the monochromatic figures in the background. Feininger found inspiration for his monumental walking man through the figures illustrated in advertisements and amusement park shooting galleries, and in the paper cutouts that Julia made for their newborn son, remarking ‘I thought I might like to paint as clearly as these cutouts’ (L. Feininger quoted in Alexander Liberman, ‘Feininger: An Eyewitness in the Studio of a Great American Artist’, in Vogue, no. 127, 1956).

Feininger's works from this period often depict colourful characters and crooked streets reminiscent of the Biedermeier era. According to Hans Hess, 'In his pictures of this period the human figure plays a dominant part, but neither the figures nor the settings in which they move pretend to be real’ (H. Hess, Lyonel Feininger, New York, 1961, p. 47). His tilted perspective and scale distortions, often coupled with non-descriptive, radical use of colour, set Feininger at the forefront of the artistic avant-garde. 



Achim Moeller, Managing Principal of The Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York - Berlin has confirmed the authenticity of this work, which is registered under no. 1634-12-05-19.