Sale: 606 / Evening Sale, June 12. 2026 in Munich → Lot 126000142
Raumbeispiel
126000142
Lyonel Feininger
At the Sea-Side, Panel I, 1940.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 140,000 - 180,000
$ 161,000 - 207,000
Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.
126000142
Lyonel Feininger
At the Sea-Side, Panel I, 1940.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 140,000 - 180,000
$ 161,000 - 207,000
Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.
Lyonel Feininger
1871 - 1956
At the Sea-Side, Panel I. 1940.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the upper right. Signed again on the reverse of the stretcher, as well as dated “March 7th 1940” and titled. 48.3 x 48.3 cm (19 x 19 in).
[AR].
• Strong contrasts, concentrated form: Lyonel Feininger is credited with inventing the modern seascape.
• A new reality of life meets familiar motifs; the difficult early years in New York and the happy Bauhaus years in Germany.
• A pictorial transformation of a Bauhaus woodcut: The Red Man and the Sun take center stage—a symbol of the artist’s personal new beginning?
• In possession of the artist’s family for a long time, this work is now being offered on the international auction market for the first time.
• Formerly on permanent loan to the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, which houses one of the world’s most important Feininger collections.
Achim Moeller, Director of the Lyonel Feininger Project, New York–Berlin, has confirmed the authenticity of this work, It is registered in the archive of the Lyonel Feininger Project under the number 1926-05-06-24. The painting is listed in 'Lyonel Feininger: The Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings' by Achim Moeller under number 392. The work is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.
Additional information was provided by Achim Moeller, The Lyonel Feininger Project, New York - Berlin.
PROVENANCE: From the artist's family (inherited).
EXHIBITION: Lyonel Feininger, Buchholz Gallery, Willard Gallery, New York, March 11–29, 1941; Grosse Pointe, The Russell A. Alger House, Detroit Institute of Arts, July–(August) 1941, cat. no. 36 (listed here as “At the Seaside”).
Lyonel Feininger: Oils and Watercolors 1940 to 1955, Willard Gallery, New York, February 1–March 3, 1956, 14 paintings, 19 watercolors, cat. no. 2, (here as “At the Seaside”).
Long-term loan, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 2004–March 2011 (label on the reverse).
LITERATURE: Achim Moeller, “At the Sea-Side, Panel I / (An der See, Tafel I), 1940 (Moeller 392).” Lyonel Feininger: The Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings. http://www.feininger-project.org/ (accessed April 9, 2024).
Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger. With a catalogue raisonné by Julia Feininger, Stuttgart 1959, CR no. 392, pp. 285f (illustrated in black and white).
- -
Ernst Scheyer, Lyonel Feininger: Caricature and Fantasy, Detroit 1964, p. 147.
Kunsthalle Nuremberg and Albrecht Dürer Society (eds.), Lyonel Feininger. Städte und Küsten: Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, exhibition catalog, Marburg 1992, p. 270.
Hans Schulz-Vanselow, Lyonel Feininger und Pommern. Kiel 1999, p. 291.
Andrea Fromm (ed.), Feininger und das Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, New York, exhibition catalog, Hamburg 2009, pp. 179 and 187.
Andrea Fromm, Feininger am Bauhaus - Transpositionen in Holzschnitt, Aquarell und Gemälde, in: Andrea Fromm (ed.), Feininger und das Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, New York, Hamburg 2009, pp. 11–29, p. 18.
Peter Nisbet, Lyonel Feininger: Drawings and Watercolors from the William S. Lieberman Bequest to the Busch Reisinger Museum, exhibition catalog, Ostfildern 2011, p. 137.
Peter Nisbet, Lyonel Feininger: Zecinungen und Aquarelle. Nachlassschenkung William S. Liebermans an das Busch-Reisinger-Museum, exhibition catalog, Ostfildern 2011, p. 137.
"The longing for a world between here and there, between today and never, was the driving force behind Feinginer’s work."
Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, Munich 1959, p. 144.
1871 - 1956
At the Sea-Side, Panel I. 1940.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the upper right. Signed again on the reverse of the stretcher, as well as dated “March 7th 1940” and titled. 48.3 x 48.3 cm (19 x 19 in).
[AR].
• Strong contrasts, concentrated form: Lyonel Feininger is credited with inventing the modern seascape.
• A new reality of life meets familiar motifs; the difficult early years in New York and the happy Bauhaus years in Germany.
• A pictorial transformation of a Bauhaus woodcut: The Red Man and the Sun take center stage—a symbol of the artist’s personal new beginning?
• In possession of the artist’s family for a long time, this work is now being offered on the international auction market for the first time.
• Formerly on permanent loan to the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, which houses one of the world’s most important Feininger collections.
Achim Moeller, Director of the Lyonel Feininger Project, New York–Berlin, has confirmed the authenticity of this work, It is registered in the archive of the Lyonel Feininger Project under the number 1926-05-06-24. The painting is listed in 'Lyonel Feininger: The Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings' by Achim Moeller under number 392. The work is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.
Additional information was provided by Achim Moeller, The Lyonel Feininger Project, New York - Berlin.
PROVENANCE: From the artist's family (inherited).
EXHIBITION: Lyonel Feininger, Buchholz Gallery, Willard Gallery, New York, March 11–29, 1941; Grosse Pointe, The Russell A. Alger House, Detroit Institute of Arts, July–(August) 1941, cat. no. 36 (listed here as “At the Seaside”).
Lyonel Feininger: Oils and Watercolors 1940 to 1955, Willard Gallery, New York, February 1–March 3, 1956, 14 paintings, 19 watercolors, cat. no. 2, (here as “At the Seaside”).
Long-term loan, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 2004–March 2011 (label on the reverse).
LITERATURE: Achim Moeller, “At the Sea-Side, Panel I / (An der See, Tafel I), 1940 (Moeller 392).” Lyonel Feininger: The Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings. http://www.feininger-project.org/ (accessed April 9, 2024).
Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger. With a catalogue raisonné by Julia Feininger, Stuttgart 1959, CR no. 392, pp. 285f (illustrated in black and white).
- -
Ernst Scheyer, Lyonel Feininger: Caricature and Fantasy, Detroit 1964, p. 147.
Kunsthalle Nuremberg and Albrecht Dürer Society (eds.), Lyonel Feininger. Städte und Küsten: Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, exhibition catalog, Marburg 1992, p. 270.
Hans Schulz-Vanselow, Lyonel Feininger und Pommern. Kiel 1999, p. 291.
Andrea Fromm (ed.), Feininger und das Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, New York, exhibition catalog, Hamburg 2009, pp. 179 and 187.
Andrea Fromm, Feininger am Bauhaus - Transpositionen in Holzschnitt, Aquarell und Gemälde, in: Andrea Fromm (ed.), Feininger und das Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, New York, Hamburg 2009, pp. 11–29, p. 18.
Peter Nisbet, Lyonel Feininger: Drawings and Watercolors from the William S. Lieberman Bequest to the Busch Reisinger Museum, exhibition catalog, Ostfildern 2011, p. 137.
Peter Nisbet, Lyonel Feininger: Zecinungen und Aquarelle. Nachlassschenkung William S. Liebermans an das Busch-Reisinger-Museum, exhibition catalog, Ostfildern 2011, p. 137.
"The longing for a world between here and there, between today and never, was the driving force behind Feinginer’s work."
Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, Munich 1959, p. 144.
Once Lyonel Feininger had assumed direction of the graphic arts workshops at the Bauhaus in Weimar, he began creating an extensive body of works that would earn him a reputation as one of the most important printmakers of the 20th century. As was typical of his work, he drew upon his familiar themes and incorporated elements from his paintings into his woodcuts. A few years later, he reversed this principle for the first time, transferring the characteristic linework and flatness of the woodcut into his paintings. This distinctive group of works, often referred to as painted woodcuts, testifies not only to Feininger’s signature style but also to his keen sense of the possibilities of artistic techniques and their specific expressive potential. Although the observer is familiar with the motifs and style from his woodcuts, he succeeds in establishing the paintings as independent works.
This is also the case with the present 1940 work “At the Sea-Side, Panel I”, which is based on the 1922 woodcut “Evening by the Sea.” As early as 1923, he rendered the motif in a colored watercolor, but ultimately opted for a stronger contrast in the 1940 painting—evidence that each medium requires its own approach. Only the sun and the central figure are highlighted in a bold red, shifting the focus from the originally equally prominent, multi-figure scene of the woodcut—which was printed exclusively in black—to the solitary man with a hat and cane.
Feininger created this work a few years after he and his wife, Julia, left Germany in 1937 due to increasing repression by the Nazis. Although he was a US native, Feininger had to start a new life in New York, far removed from the Bauhaus's stable structures. He did not create any new works between 1937 and 1938. The painter only gradually found new inspiration, though he remained strongly attached to his earlier pictorial themes, as in “At the Sea-Side, Panel I,” which he transposed into his new reality. It can be interpreted as a symbol of the artist’s personal new beginning and is marked by a universally understandable, unfulfilled longing for past times, a feeling that Hans Hess must have felt in 1959, when he wrote: “The longing for a world between here and there, between today and never, was the driving force behind Feininger’s work.” (Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, Munich 1959, p. 144) [AR]
This is also the case with the present 1940 work “At the Sea-Side, Panel I”, which is based on the 1922 woodcut “Evening by the Sea.” As early as 1923, he rendered the motif in a colored watercolor, but ultimately opted for a stronger contrast in the 1940 painting—evidence that each medium requires its own approach. Only the sun and the central figure are highlighted in a bold red, shifting the focus from the originally equally prominent, multi-figure scene of the woodcut—which was printed exclusively in black—to the solitary man with a hat and cane.
Feininger created this work a few years after he and his wife, Julia, left Germany in 1937 due to increasing repression by the Nazis. Although he was a US native, Feininger had to start a new life in New York, far removed from the Bauhaus's stable structures. He did not create any new works between 1937 and 1938. The painter only gradually found new inspiration, though he remained strongly attached to his earlier pictorial themes, as in “At the Sea-Side, Panel I,” which he transposed into his new reality. It can be interpreted as a symbol of the artist’s personal new beginning and is marked by a universally understandable, unfulfilled longing for past times, a feeling that Hans Hess must have felt in 1959, when he wrote: “The longing for a world between here and there, between today and never, was the driving force behind Feininger’s work.” (Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, Munich 1959, p. 144) [AR]
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