Gaberndorf II
Framed: 44 5/8 x 36 inches (113.35 x 91.44 cm)
- 129
Lyonel Feininger, Galerie Dr. Goldschmidt – Dr. Wallerstein, Berlin, November 22, 1925-n.d., no. 3.
Lyonel Feininger und O.Th.W. Stein, Kunsthütte, Chemnitz, Germany, October 17-November 14, 1926, no. 5.
Lyonel Feininger, Erich Heckel: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen. Ewald Mataré: Plastik, Gesellschaft der Kunstfreunde Breslau, Schlesisches Museum der Bildenden Künste [Altes Generalkommando], Breslau, January 20-February 1929, no. 18.
Die Blaue Vier, Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Berlin, October 1929, no. 5.
Wohnung und Werkraum, Kunsthalle Mannheim, May 4-June 22, 1930.
Lyonel Feininger, Museum Folkwang, Essen, June 21-August 23, 1931.
Lyonel Feininger: geboren am 17. Juli 1871, National-Galerie, Berlin, September 19, 1931-January 1932, no. 83.
Lyonel Feininger, Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover, Germany, January 28-March 6, 1932, no. 32.
2nd Feininger Exhibition 1937, Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland, CA, June 27-August 7, 1937, no. 11; San Francisco Museum of Art, September 5-October 29, 1937; Santa Barbara; Los Angeles Art Association, University Gallery; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA; Seattle Art Museum, November 3-December 5, 1937; Portland.
Feininger: a Retrospective Exhibition, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, April 1938, no. 5.
Possibly Exhibition of American Contemporary Paintings, Lilienfeld Galleries, New York, November 12-November 30, 1940, no. 10.
17th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, March 23-May 4, 1941, no. 92.
Paintings from the Corcoran Biennial, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, October 10-November 10, 1941; The Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA; Arnot Art Gallery, Elmira, November 1-23, 1941, no. 16.
Lyonel Feininger/Marsden Hartley, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 24, 1944-January 14, 1945.
Fine Arts Festival, Colorado State College, Fort Collins, CO, July 17-24, 1952.
Art in the 20th Century: Commemorating the Tenth Anniversary of the Signing of the United Nations Charter, San Francisco Museum of Art, June 17-July 10, 1955.
25th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Painting, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, January 13-March 10, 1957; Toledo Museum of Art, April 1-30, 1957, no. 46.
Cubism in Retrospect, Denver Art Museum, January 22-February 22, 1959.
German Expressionism, Pasadena Art Museum, April 23-June 4, 1961, no. 14.
10 Americans, Milwaukee Art Center, September 21-November 5, 1961, no. 22.
Lyonel Feininger, 1871-1956: A Memorial Exhibition, Pasadena Art Museum, April 26-May 29, 1966; Milwaukee Art Center, July 10-August 11, 1966; Baltimore Museum of Art, September 7-October 23, 1966, no. 24.
Lyonel Feininger, Haus der Kunst, Munich, March 24-May 13, 1973; Kunsthaus Zürich, May 25-July 22, 1973, no. 111.
Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years, 1915-1933, Guggenheim Museum, New York, December 9, 1983-February 12, 1984, no. 133; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, March 15-April 29, 1984; Kunsthaus Zürich, May 30-July 15, 1984, no. 124; Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin, August 9-September 23, 1984, no. 161.
Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 30-October 16, 2011; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, January 20-May 13, 2012.
Named for the small German town it depicts, Gaberndorf II features shifting, luminous planes of color. The prismatic hues may evoke the feeling of a Bach fugue, a layered musical composition of interwoven parts elaborating on a common theme. Lyonel Feininger, who called music the first influence in his life, revered Johann Sebastian Bach above all other composers.
Feininger created this painting while teaching at the Bauhaus, Germany’s innovative art and design school founded in Weimar in 1919. Dedicated to principles of economy, efficiency, and spiritual renewal, the Bauhaus (House of Construction) came to define Modernism.
The artist, Weimar and Dessau, Germany and New York, 1924-1946;
Purchased from Feininger, through Lilienfeld Galleries, New York, by the Friends of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1946 [1];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1946.
NOTES:
[1] The painting was lent to the exhibition Lyonel Feininger/Marsden Hartley at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in October 1944 by Lilienfeld Galleries. However, correspondence between Feininger and Dorothy Miller, Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, indicates Lilienfeld probably had the painting on consignment from Feininger.
“Die Feininger- und Stein – Ausstellung der Kunsthütte,” Chemnitzer Tageblatt und Anzeiger 297 (October 27, 1926), unpaginated.
Erwin Redslob, “Het werk von Lyonel Feininger,” in Wendigen 10 no. 7 (1929), 4, (repro.).
Blätter der Galerie Ferdinand Möller, issue 5 (October 1929): 7.
Lyonel Feininger: geboren am 17. Juli 1871, exh. cat. (Berlin: National-Galerie, 1931), 30.
Lyonel Feininger, exh. cat. (Hannover: Kestner-Gesellschaft, 1932), unpaginated.
Feininger: a Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Minneapolis, MN: University Gallery, 1938), 30.
Possibly Exhibition of American Contemporary Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Lilienfeld Galleries, 1940), unpaginated.
The Seventeenth Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, exh. cat. (Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1941), 47.
Isabel C. Herdle, “Gallery Group Significant of Trends,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (October 12, 1941): unpaginated.
Amy H. Croughton, “Artists and Craftsmen,” Rochester Times-Union (October 17, 1941): unpaginated.
Exhibition of Oil Paintings from the Biennial Exhibition at the Corcoran Art Gallery, exh. cat. (Elmira, NY: Arnot Art Gallery, 1941), unpaginated.
Rosamund Frost and Aimée Crane, Contemporary Art: the March of Art from Cézanne until Now (New York: Crown Publishers, 1942), 131, (repro.).
Dorothy C. Miller, ed., Lyonel Feininger/Marsden Hartley, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1944), 46.
The 25th Biennial Exhibition, exh. cat. (Washington DC: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1957), 19.
Hans Hess, Feininger (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1959), no. 249, pp. 201, 271, (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 149, (repro.).
10 Americans, exh. cat. (Milwaukee Art Center, 1961), unpaginated.
German Expressionism, exh. cat. (Pasadena, CA: Pasadena Art Museum, 1961), 15, (repro.).
Lyonel Feininger, 1871-1956: a Memorial Exhibition, exh. cat. (Pasadena, CA: Pasadena Art Museum, 1966), 23.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 198, (repro.), 198.
Lyonel Feininger, exh. cat. (Munich: Ausstellungsleitung Haus der Kunst, 1973), 84, (repro.).
June L. Ness, ed., Lyonel Feininger (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), front cover, 119, 137, 140, (repro.).
Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years, 1915-1933, exh. cat. (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1983), 188-89, (repro.).
Kandinsky: Russische Zeit und Bauhausjahre, 1915-1933, exh. cat. (Berlin: Bauhaus-Archive – Museum für Gestaltung, 1984), 212, (repro.).
Kandinsky in Russland und am Bauhaus 1915-1933, exh. cat. (Zürich: Kunsthaus Zürich, 1983), 41, 163, (repro.).
Felicitas Tobien, Lyonel Feininger (Kirchdorf: Berghaus Verlag, 1988), 60-61.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 219.
George L. McKenna, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Prints 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in association with The University of Washington Press, 1996), 201.
Jörn Grabowski, “Lyonel Feininger und die Sammlung der Moderne im Kronprinzenpalais 1919-1937,” in Roland März, ed., Lyonel Feininger: Von Gelmeroda nach Manhattan. Retrospektive der Gemälde (Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1998), 331, 334 (repro.).
Sabine Schulze, ed., Das 20. Jahrhundert im Städel (Ostfildern: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1998), 54.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 206, (repro.).
Donald Kuspit, “Lyonel Feininger: Gate of Light and The Human Comedy,” in Artnet Magazine, http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/kuspit/lyonel-feininger-at-the-whitney-7-12-11.asp (accessed April 12, 2017), (repro.).
Jan Schall, ed., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 161, (repro.).
