
Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956)
(Profile for Model Train Set, Green Engine), 1914
Watercolor and ink on paper
3 1/4 x 13 in. (8.3 x 33 cm)
During his childhood in New York in the 1870s and 1880s, Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956) watched the mighty steam engines at Grand Central Station. These marvels of American ingenuity left a lasting impression on the young boy. In 1944, Feininger reminisced to Alfred H. Barr, Jr., director of The Museum of Modern Art, New York:
“The earliest impressions I have of machinery were the trains, the locomotives, half terrifying and wholly fascinating…at the age of 5 years I already drew, from memory, dozens of trains thus seen from above and in accurate perspective. Later I became more observing of details. There were the black locos of the N.Y.C., with ‘diamond’ smokestacks, and the locomotives of the N.Y.N.H. and H.R.R., with elegant straight smokestacks painted, like the driving-wheels, a bright vermillion red, and oh, the brass bands about the boiler and the ‘fancy’ steam domes of polished brass, bright cylinder-heads….”
After he moved to Germany in 1887, Feininger continued making etchings, watercolors, and paintings of his beloved American trains. He also began developing a series of wooden toy trains, inventing and patenting a “gliding block,” which allowed them to slide across the floor without wheels. In 1913, Munich manufacturer Otto Löwenstein agreed to produce Feininger’s toys. The artist spent months away from his home and young family in Berlin-Zehlendorf to work in the tranquility of a studio in Weimar. “I am thoroughly involved with the models,” he wrote to his wife, Julia, in 1913. “I am making the trickiest designs, carefully thought out in every detail….This work—with a practical purpose besides—has rejuvenated me into a happy boy of fifteen.” The accuracy of the technical drawings he made for the models, and his expertly formed prototypes, reflect his devotion to the project.
The outbreak of World War I cut the project short, and Feininger could only complete a limited number of prototypes. He gave them to his children and friends. Recognizing their artistic value, his sons T. Lux and Andreas published Lyonel Feininger: City at the Edge of the World in 1965, a book devoted to their father’s model locomotives and trains, as well as his carved wooden houses, figures, and ships. They positioned his toys as an extension of his creativity offering “insight into the formal ideas of their creator.”
Lyonel Feininger next to a Locomotive, Deep, 1933
Photo: Werner Jackson
1871
Lyonel Feininger is born on July 17 in New York to Karl and Elizabeth Feininger; he is the first of three children.
1887
Leaves for Germany and starts studying at the General Vocational and Crafts School in Hamburg.
1888
Moves to Berlin and begins studying at the Royal Academy of Arts.
1892
Leaves the Academy and moves to Paris.
1893
Moves back to Berlin and starts working as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator.
1901
Marries Clara Fürst, birth of daughter Eleonora.
1902
Birth of daughter Marianne.
1905
Meets Julia Berg (née Lilienfeld) and separates from his wife.
1906
Moves with Julia to Paris and their son Andreas is born. Works on two comic strips for The Chicago Sunday Tribune.
1907
Executes his first oil painting.
1908
Marries Julia in London, returns to Berlin.
1909
Birth of son Laurence.
1910
Birth of son Theodore Lux (T. Lux).
1911
Six paintings are shown at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris.
1913
Five paintings are shown at the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, organized by the Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin.
1917
First solo exhibition at the Galerie Der Sturm.
1919
Is appointed the first master of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar.
1921
Composes his first fugue.
1926
Moves with the Bauhaus to Dessau as master without teaching duties.
1929
Works on a series of paintings for the City of Halle (Saale).
1931
Completes his Halle series. Retrospectives in Dresden, Essen, and at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
1934
Moves to Berlin-Siemensstadt.
1935
The National Socialists declare his art “degenerate.”
1936
Teaches a summer course at Mills College in Oakland, California.
1937
Leaves Germany, teaches another summer course at Mills College and then settles in New York City.
1939
Works on murals for the 1939/1940 New York World’s Fair.
1942
One of his paintings is awarded a purchase prize by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
1944
Retrospective with Marsden Hartley at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
1945
Teaches a summer course at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina.
1956
Dies on January 13 in his New York apartment.
Achim Moeller founded The Lyonel Feininger Project in 1987 to prepare the catalogues raisonné, provide certificates of authenticity as well as exhibition consultation, and to conduct and support research related to the artist. The Lyonel Feininger Project, with premises in New York and Berlin, organizes scholarly exhibitions and maintains a 20,000-volume reference library.
Lyonel Feininger: The Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings by Achim Moeller can be accessed at feiningerproject.org.