Lyonel Feininger
„Braunlage, Harz Mountains“
Artist
Lyonel Feininger
Additional Description
Aquarell und Tusche auf chamoisfarbenem Bütten von Ingres. 1937. Ca. 34 x 44,5 cm. Signiert unten links, betitelt unten mittig sowie datiert unten rechts.
Period
(1871 - New York - 1956)
Technique
Works on paper
Provenance
Privatsammlung.
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Description
- Important watercolor from 1937 - created in the year of emigration, between remembrance and a new beginning
- Motif from the Harz Mountains, a central location in Feininger's early landscape painting
- The black, cubic-crystalline forms combine sky, earth and snow to create a haunting spiritual structure
In the summer of 1937, Lyonel Feininger was forced to leave Germany. After his art was ostracized by the National Socialist regime, he emigrated to the United States with his family. It was a forced new beginning after years of intensive work in Weimar and Dessau. "Braunlage, Harz Mountains" was possibly created while still in Germany - or shortly after arriving in America from the memory of the familiar landscape. The Harz Mountains, especially Braunlage, is a place of intense memories for Feininger: This is where he spent the summers of 1917 and 1918 with his family, and where he developed the crystalline, architectural formal language that would shape his work. In the present sheet, Feininger draws on these early impressions and transforms them into a vision of almost symbolic density.
With a confident stroke and reduced use of color, Feininger creates a haunting mountain landscape. The black, cubically broken-up forms of the mountains are continued in the snow of the valley and in the clouds - the dark black permeates the sky, rock and earth in equal measure. This creates an exciting dialog between light and shadow, solidity and dissolution. The composition appears strict, almost architectural - a crystalline structure of lines and surfaces in which nature is condensed into a spiritual structure.
The watercolor breathes memory and distance at the same time. It is as if Feininger is looking back at the country he had to leave with a wistful, inwardly collected gaze. This quiet mountain landscape combines melancholy and clarity, farewell and new beginnings.
A work of great emotional depth and formal rigor. A key sheet on the threshold between Feininger's German and American creative phases, which impressively testifies to the spiritual continuity of his work.
Achim Moeller, Director of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York - Berlin, has confirmed the authenticity of this work, which is registered in the Lyonel Feininger Project archive under the number 2026-10-22-25. With a photo expertise dated 12.10.2025.
- Motif from the Harz Mountains, a central location in Feininger's early landscape painting
- The black, cubic-crystalline forms combine sky, earth and snow to create a haunting spiritual structure
In the summer of 1937, Lyonel Feininger was forced to leave Germany. After his art was ostracized by the National Socialist regime, he emigrated to the United States with his family. It was a forced new beginning after years of intensive work in Weimar and Dessau. "Braunlage, Harz Mountains" was possibly created while still in Germany - or shortly after arriving in America from the memory of the familiar landscape. The Harz Mountains, especially Braunlage, is a place of intense memories for Feininger: This is where he spent the summers of 1917 and 1918 with his family, and where he developed the crystalline, architectural formal language that would shape his work. In the present sheet, Feininger draws on these early impressions and transforms them into a vision of almost symbolic density.
With a confident stroke and reduced use of color, Feininger creates a haunting mountain landscape. The black, cubically broken-up forms of the mountains are continued in the snow of the valley and in the clouds - the dark black permeates the sky, rock and earth in equal measure. This creates an exciting dialog between light and shadow, solidity and dissolution. The composition appears strict, almost architectural - a crystalline structure of lines and surfaces in which nature is condensed into a spiritual structure.
The watercolor breathes memory and distance at the same time. It is as if Feininger is looking back at the country he had to leave with a wistful, inwardly collected gaze. This quiet mountain landscape combines melancholy and clarity, farewell and new beginnings.
A work of great emotional depth and formal rigor. A key sheet on the threshold between Feininger's German and American creative phases, which impressively testifies to the spiritual continuity of his work.
Achim Moeller, Director of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York - Berlin, has confirmed the authenticity of this work, which is registered in the Lyonel Feininger Project archive under the number 2026-10-22-25. With a photo expertise dated 12.10.2025.