Lyonel Feininger - New MMFA Exhibition

Lyonel Feininger

January 21 - May 13, 2012

at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Lyonel Feininger is an artist of exceptional talent whose works include comic strips, caricatures, whimsical toys, woodcuts, photographs, musical fugues, figurative painting, and the transcendental paintings of architecture and the sea.

Come and see this exhibition, you will discover a great artist who, most likely, you do not know at all, or do not know enough about. He is indeed a surprising find! Multi-talented and diversified, he astonishes with his interpretation of the reality of his subjects, be they people, buildings or seascapes. The shapes and colours he uses create a rhythmical cadence, an illusion of movement in the scene, in the virtual world he has conjured within the canvas. Many of his paintings seem not to stand still, they have a wave-like vibrancy of their own. You will also see in his works both the expressionist and cubist elements, as well as quirky distortions of a caricaturist.

Lyonel Feininger seems to have fallen in the past through the cracks of the art historians’ attention. This was probably mainly due to the fact that his artistic career was torn between two continents: between Germany and America. He was born in America to German parents. He moved alone to Germany at age 16. His artistic career was very much diversified, and even included teaching at Bauhaus, where he was hired by Walter Gropius as the first faculty appointment.

Although Feininger was held in high esteem in Germany, where his career began and took deep roots, he had to flee to America in 1937 at the age of 66 because of the World War II and his Jewish wife. He therefore had to reestablish himself as an artist once again, on a different continent, and at an advanced age, which must have been quite a difficult task. He lived in America until his death in New York City in 1956 at the age of 84.

Also amazing is the diversification of his talent. He loved the fugues of Bach, and had written some fugues himself. You will find exhibited his personal violin, which he often played in the mornings before breakfast. You will also see colourful toys he made for his son, his caricatures, cartoons, and some photographs. He produced a large body of photographic works between 1928 and 1956 which he had not shared with the public but only with his friends, and which came to light only after his death.

In addition to Lyonel Feininger’s works, the last room of this present MMFA exhibition also displays black and white photographs of his son Andreas Feininger, an accomplished and a renown American photographer. One can easily discover in his works the influence his father had on him.

I highly recommend this exhibition. Come and discover for yourself this amazingly creative artist. You will also be able to pick up a pamphlet at the museum with all the activities it offers, and all the free films and lectures that are scheduled.

To find out more about this exhibition and the opening hours, visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website.

You can purchase the exhibition catalogue at the Museum's Boutique and Store.

Click on images to enlarge them.

List of photos as they appear in the text

1. Feininger, Bathers on the Beach I, 1912, Oil on canvas 50.5 x 65.7

Harvard Art Museums, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Association Fund BR54.7, © Estate of Lyonel Feininger / SODRAC (2011)

Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

2. Lyonel Feininger, Bird Cloud, 1926, Oil on canvas 43.8 x 71.1 cm

Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum; Cambridge, Massachusetts; purchase in memory of Eda K. Loeb BR50.414, © Estate of Lyonel Feininger / SODRAC (2011)

Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

3. Lyonel Feininger, Yellow Street II, 1918, Oil on canvas 95 x 86.1 cm

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Purchase; gift of The Maxwell Cummings Family Foundation, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' Volunteer Association, John G. McConnell, C.B.E., Mr. and Mrs. A Murray Vaughan, Harold Lawson Bequest, and Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest.,© Estate of Lyonel Feininger / SODRAC (2011)

Photo MMFA

4. Lyonel Feininger, New York 1871 – New York 1956

The Kin-der-Kids, The Chicago Sunday Tribune, April 29, 1906
59.4 x 45.3 cm Commercial lithograph

The Museum of Modern Art, New York; gift of the artist 260.1944.1
© Estate of Lyonel Feininger / SODRAC (2011)
Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

5.  Lyonel Feininger, Locomotive With Big Wheal, 1910, MMFA Exibition 2012

Photo by Nadia Slejskova