Lyonel Feininger

Dr. Lothar Wallerstein, Vienna, Salzburg and New York (acquired by at least 1941 and thence by descent to the late owner)

 

Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, New York,  1961, no. 201, listed p. 266 (with an incorrect illustration and titled Umpferstedt III)

Original canvas. The surface is unvarnished. Apart from a few scattered minor spots of inpainting and a faint stretcher mark in the upper composition, this work is in excellent condition. Colors: Overall fairly accurate, although fresher in the original.
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This dynamic composition is one of three oils that Feininger completed in Umpferstedt, a city in the Weinmar region of central Germany.  Here we can see the great spires of the cityscape and cathedral, dramatically facetted so that the central building appears to be shattered and collapsing onto itself.  As was the case for many of the compositions that Feininger completed in 1919, both in woodcut and in oil, the main concern of this picture is the beauty of architecture.  The year that he painted this canvas, Feininger was invited by Walter Gropius to be the head of the graphic workshop at the Bauhaus, the avant-garde art school located in Dessau.  Feininger designed the first cover of the Bauhaus manifesto (see fig. 2), and his choice of subject is not unlike that of the present composition. 

We know that Feininger painted the urban landscape of Umpferstedt at least three times - twice in 1914 and again in 1919 for the present composition.   The earlier compositions are much more fragmented, reflecting the influence of Cubism.  This picture, however, shows an entirely new preoccupation with the legibility of form and draftsmanship, which was related to Feininger's appointment to the Bauhaus.  Another influence on the strong linearity of this picture were the artist's woodcuts.  Painting supplies were expensive and difficult to obtain at the end of the war, and his primary medium that year was woodcut, an inexpensive alternative that enabled him to put his skills as a draftsman to good use.  Feininger's focus on new media and his emphasis on draftsmanship carried over into the oils that he completed in 1919, including this painting.  Here, he depicts the landscape with a precision and stylistic confidence that could only be achieved by an expert draftsman.  Angles intersecting and overlapping add depth and dimension to the composition, and, in spite of the abstraction that he achieves with this technique, Feininger is able to preserve the legibility of the scene.  His confidence in his craft is most clearly expressed in the manner in which he executes the architectural features of buildings; the slope of the eaves and the sharpness of the corners are exaggerated, dramatically heightening the importance of line as a structural device in this picture.

Concerning his pictures from this era, Feininger wrote:  "Each individual work serves as an expression of our most personal state of mind at that particular moment and of the inescapable, imperative need for release by means of an appropriate act of creation: in the rhythm, form and color and mood of a picture" (quoted in W.D. Dube, Expressionism, New York, 1973, p. 172).

The first owner of this picture was Dr. Lothar Wallerstein (1882-1949).  Wallerstein was born in Prague to an intellectual and musical family and earned his medical doctorate in 1906.  Wallerstein's musical talent lead to an illustrious career in the music industry and collaborations with the composer Richard Strauss.  Between 1927 through 1937, Wallerstein served as a chief producer for the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Music Festival.   During the rise of National Socialism in the late 1930s, Wallerstein left Austria for New York, taking the present painting with him.  There he was appointed stage director of the Metropolitan Opera, where he met Maria Strug, a young singer and music student.  Not long after they married in 1944, the couple relocated to Europe and produced Strauss's comic opera, Der Rozenkavalier.