T. Lux Feininger - Artists - Moeller Fine Art

Portrait of T. Lux Feininger, 1933

Photo: Lore Feininger

1910
Born on June 11 in Berlin-Zehlendorf, the third son of Julia Berg (née Lilienfeld, 1880–1970) and Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956). 

1919
The family relocates to Weimar, where Lyonel Feininger is appointed "Meister" (master) at the newly established Bauhaus. 

1922
Spends the summer with Erich and Sidi Heckel in Osterholz near Flensburg. Visits to Hamburg. 

1924
He and his brother Laurence attend the "Neue Schule" in Hellerau near Dresden directed by the art historian Alois J. Schardt (1889–1955) until 1925.
Spends first summer with his father in Deep at the Baltic Sea (today: Mrzeżyno, Poland), continued yearly until 1935.

1925
Starts occupying himself with photography. 

1926
Moves to Dessau. 
At the age of sixteen-and-a-half he becomes a student of the Bauhaus in Dessau. In the winter semester 1926-27 he attends the preliminary course under Josef Albers. In his second term (summer 1927 to 1929) he attends th stage workshop and stage class under Oskar Schlemmer. Postgraduate studies from 1929 to 1932. Among his other teachers are Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

1927
Works on photographs in the darkroom in the basement of the Feininger's "Master House" set up by his brother Andreas. Is represented by DEPHOT, the Berlin photo agency. 

1928
Becomes an active member of the Bauhaus Band (Banjo, Clarinet), until 1932.

1929
Participates at the "FiFo," the International film and photography exhibition of the German Werkbund in Stuttgart. Receives his Bauhaus degree. Retruns to painting, following a suggestion by his fellow student and friend, Clemens Röseler.
Post-graduate studies at the Bauhaus until 1932. 

1930
Is represented with two paintings in the "Kunstblatt"-exhibition "Künstler im Reich" (Artists in the Reich), at Reckendorfhaus, Berlin, under the name of Theodore Lux. Although American he needs to confirm his US citizenship.

1931
Exhibition of paintings at the Bauhaus in Dessau. Philipp Johnson acquires his photographs for The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Summer trip to Switzerland and Brittany. Moves together with Clemens Röseler to a studio community at an old brick factory. 

1931/32
Solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Erfurt.

1932
Visits his brother Andreas in Hamburg. One-month stay in Paris. First invitation to exhibit at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh. Moves in the fall to Paris, where he lives until 1935.

1933
Participates at the International Exhibition of the College Art Association in New York and Cleveland. 

1935
In January returns from Paris to Berlin. Sale of one of the paintings shown at the International Carnegie Exhibition, Pittsburgh. Solo exhibitions at galleries Karl Nierendorf in Berlin and Commeter in Hamburg. Stays in Hamburg, sketches the harbor and the Elbe river.

1936
Solo exhibition at gallery Karl Nierendorf, Berlin. In November moves to America. He arrives in New York on November 16, 1936. 

1937
Solo exhibition at gallery Commeter, Hamburg. Photographs the piers and streets of Manhattan.

1939
His intensive work of the past months is rewarded by the sale of some paintings to private collectors.

1940
Exhibition together with Ben Shahn at Julian Levy Gallery, New York.

1941
He is profoundly shocked by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

1942
Is drafted in April and serves in the US Army until 1945 at the Military Intelligence Division where he draws images of enemy weapon systems and military positions which are used by the troops for identification.

1943
Participates in the exhibition "American Realists and Magic Realists" at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 

1944
On November 11, marries Jeanne Sinon (1914–1949). 

1945
Resumes artistic photography and experiments with tele-photo lenses, binoculars, an opera glasses. 

1946
Enrolls at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and studies under professors Salmony, Lopez-Rey, Friedlander und Cook (1946/1947).

1947
In February solo exhibition at Julian Levy Gallery, New York, for the first time under the name "T. Lux Feininger." 

1949
On May 16, Jeanne dies of stomach cancer in New York, after a long illness.

1950
Becomes design teacher at Sarah-Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, until 1952. Participates in the exhibition "Revolution and Tradition in Modern American Art" at the Brooklyn Museum, New York.

1953
Moves to Cambridge, MA, and becomes painting and drawing teacher at Harvard University.

1954
Exhibitis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA. Participates in the exhibition "Reality and Fantasy" at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. 

1955
On December 17, marries to Patricia (Pat) Jean Randall (1925–1999).

1957
Participates in the exhibition "Bauhaus-Painters" at the Biennal in Sao Paolo, Brasil. Birth of his son Lucas.

1959
Birth of his son Conrad.

1962
Starts teaching drawing and painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School. Retrospective in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, MA. 

1963
Moves into a house in Arlington Street, Cambridge, MA.

1965
Birth of his son Charles. Publishes together with his brother Andreas the book "Lyonel Feininger: Die Stadt am Ende der Welt" (City at the Edge of the World). 

1967
Retrospective exhibition at Trinity College, Austin Arts Center in Hartford, CT.

1970
Buys a historical house near the fishing port in Westport Point, MA, where he and his family spend the summers. 

1974
Brief stay in Germany due to unresolved details of ownership regarding the works of his father. 

1975
Retires from teaching.

1980
Starts inventorizing his photographic oeuvre, encouraged by the New York art dealer Eugene Prakapas. Selects 202 early photographs for his first large photography exhibition "T. Lux Feininger: Photographs of the Twenties and Thirties," at Prakapas Gallery, New York.

1983
Second large exhibition of his photographic oeuvre at Prakapas Gallery, New York, with  c. 100 photographs of the 1930s and 1940s. Brief stay in Germany due to legally unresolved details of ownership regarding the works by his father.

1988
Second exhibition at Gallery on the Green in Lexington, MA.

1995
Exhibition of paintings at Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York.

1998
Retrospective of paintings at the Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg in Halle/Saale, traveld to Altonaer Museum in Hamburg.

1999
On November 14 his wife Patricia (Pat) dies in Cambridge, MA.

2001
Exhibition of paintings and drawings together with works by his father Lyonel and his brother Andreas at the Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe. 

2006
The autobiography "Zwei Welten. Mein Künstlerleben zwischen Bauhaus und Amerika" (Two Worlds: My Artist’s Life between Bauhaus and America) is published in German with a comprehensive essay by Wolfgang Büche. 

2010/11
The anniversary exhibition "Welten-Segler: T. Lux Feininger zum 100. Geburtstag Werke 1929–1942" (World Sailor) is shown at the Kunsthalle zu Kiel, the Städtische Galerie am Abdinghof in Paderborn, the Lyonel Feininger-Galerie in Quedlinburg and Stiftung Ahlers Pro Arte/Kestner Pro Arte in Hanover.

2011
Dies in Cambridge on the 7th of July.

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