Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956)
(Village), 1913
Crayon and pencil on paper
6 1/4 x 8 1/8 in. (15.9 x 20.6 cm)
Dated lower left: SAT 5 IV 13
Here we highlight nine particularly fine nature studies, dating from 1913 to 1920, that Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956) made of the villages around Weimar, in Thuringia.
Feininger first visited Weimar in 1906. He then returned to the town for extended stays in 1913 and 1914, in order to have time and space to concentrate on his work away from his active Berlin family life. He often ventured out on his bicycle, writing to Julia of one his explorations: “The further I went the more beautiful the villages. Each with a church, always old, always full of character.” After he was appointed the first master at the Bauhaus in 1919, he and his family moved to Weimar. Feininger soon returned to the villages he had come to know—including Taubach, Zottelstedt, Gaberndorf, and Vollersroda—sketching their streets and churches and, later, turning many of these sketches into paintings.
