Feininger, Lyonel (fī`nĭngər), 1871–1956, American painter and illustrator, b. New York City. Feininger studied painting in Berlin, Hamburg, and Paris. He was an illustrator and caricaturist for several periodicals in Paris and in Germany and had a weekly comic page (1906–7) in the Chicago Tribune before he turned to easel painting in 1907. He exhibited with the Blaue Reiter Blaue Reiter, der (dĕr blou`ə rī`tər) [Ger.,=the blue rider], German expressionist art movement, lasting from 1911 to 1914.
..... Click the link for more information. group and taught at the Bauhaus Bauhaus (bou`hous), school of art and architecture in Germany.
..... Click the link for more information. in Germany (1919–32). His canvases appeared in the so-called degenerate art exhibition of 1933. He returned permanently to the United States in 1937, taught at Mills College, and exhibited extensively. Feininger was fascinated by sailboats and skyscrapers, themes that appear in many of his oils and watercolors. He developed a delicate geometric style with interlocking translucent planes, suggestive of both light rays and architectural forms. Feininger is represented in New York City in the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum, and his works are also included in other leading collections.

Bibliography

See his reminiscences, ed. by J. L. Ness (1974); definitive catalog of his graphic work by L. E. Prasse (1972); biographies by H. Hess (1961) and E. Schuyer (1964); study by T. L. Feininger (1965); The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger (1994), ed. by B. Blackbeard.

Feininger, Lyonel (Charles Adrian)

(born July 17, 1871, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 13, 1956, New York City) U.S.-born German painter. He went to Germany in 1887 to study music but ended up studying painting instead. Around 1910, under the influence of Cubism, he developed a unique style, using prismatic interpenetrating planes of colour to depict architectural and marine subjects. He exhibited with Der Blaue Reiter in Berlin in 1913 and was later an influential teacher at the Bauhaus (1919–33). His work was a synthesis of art, science, and technology; he is noted for introducing compositional discipline and lyrical colour to German Expressionism. After the Nazis came to power, he returned to the U.S. He was the father of photographer Andreas Feininger.