Lyonel Feininger was a German-American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and photographer regarded as one of the leading figures of twentieth-century modernism. Born in New York City to musician parents, Feininger moved to Germany as a teenager to study art, eventually building a successful early career as a caricaturist and comic-strip artist. His innovative comic works for the Chicago Tribune are now considered landmarks in the history of graphic storytelling.
At the age of thirty-six, Feininger turned fully to fine art, developing a distinctive style characterized by crystalline forms, luminous color, and architectural compositions influenced by Expressionism and Cubism. Closely associated with the Bauhaus, he became one of its first faculty members under Walter Gropius and designed the iconic woodcut for the Bauhaus manifesto. Forced to leave Germany after the Nazis labeled his work “degenerate,” Feininger returned to the United States in 1937. Today, he is celebrated for his visionary cityscapes, seascapes, prints, and pioneering contributions to modern art.
