Lyonel Charles Adrian Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City. In 1887 he traveled to Europe and studied art in Hamburg, Berlin and Paris. He started his career as a cartoonist in 1894 and met with much success in this area. He also worked as a commercial caricaturist for 20 years. At the age of 36, he began to work as a fine artist. His work, characterized above all by prismatically broken, overlapping forms in translucent colors, with many references to architecture and the sea, made him one of the most important artists of classical modernism. Furthermore he produced a large body of photographic works and created several piano compositions and fugues for organ.
Lyonel Feininger by Emil Orlik, 1906
Lyonel Feininger, 1914, Benz VI, oil on canvas, 100 × 125 cm (39.3 × 49.2 in)
Lyonel Feininger, 1924, Gaberndorf II, oil on canvas mounted on board, (39 7/16 × 30 3/4 in) Included in Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 46-10
Feininger Tour marker in Benz, Usedom Island, Germany
The Berlin Secession was an art movement established in Germany on May 2, 1898. Formed in reaction to the Association of Berlin Artists, and the restrictions on contemporary art imposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, 65 artists "seceded," demonstrating against the standards of academic or government-endorsed art. The movement is classified as a form of German Modernism, and came on the heels of several other secessions in Germany, including Jugendstil and the Munich Secession.
Meeting of the Berlin Secession. From the left: Wilhelm Kohlhoff, Erich Büttner, Friedrich Scholz, Ernst Fritsch, Leo von König, Lovis Corinth, Ernst Oppler, Emil Orlik, Bruno Krauskopf, Charlotte Behrend-Corinth, Erich Waske, Franz Heckendorf by Ernst Oppler, 1921
Jury for the Berlin Secession 1908 exhibition. From the left: sculptors Fritz Klimsch and August Gaul, painters Walter Leistikow and Hans Baluschek, art dealer Paul Cassirer, painters Max Slevogt (sitting) and George Mosson (standing), sculptor Max Kruse, painters Max Liebermann (sitting), Emil Rudolf Weiß and Lovis Corinth.
Painting by Edvard Munch, "The Dance of Life", 1899–1900.
Building of the Berlin Secession in Tiergartenstraße 21a