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Lot Essay
Achim Mœller, Managing Principal of The Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York – Berlin has confirmed the authenticity of this work, which is registered under no. 1337-04-22-14.
The work will be included in the Lyonel Feininger Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings edited by Achim Mœller.
Painted in 1945, Lyonel Feininger’s Architecture with Stars II takes as its subject the Manhattan skyline at night. American-born Feininger had moved to Germany in 1887 and remained there until 1937, when the Nazi regime forced him to leave and return to his native New York. Presenting a nocturnal cityscape under a softly luminous blue sky in which two shining stars and a sickle moon hang, Architecture with Stars II captures the atmospheric glow of the city at night.
On his arrival in New York, Feininger was at first overwhelmed by the city; he wrote, ‘I find myself in a state of continual wonderment… There is nothing that does not affect me in some way; every step I take…is a source of pure delight’ (Feininger, quoted in B. Haskell, Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World, exh. cat., New York, 2011, p. 154). However, his joy in rediscovering New York quickly faded as he experienced a sense of dislocation and displacement, coupled with dire financial circumstances. It was not until 1940 that the artist began to readjust and from this point he started to paint again, looking to the geometric architecture of Manhattan and its soaring skyscrapers adorned with thousands of windows, as a source of inspiration. The arrangement of buildings in Architecture with Stars II demonstrates Feininger’s interest in the architectural formation of the city. Feininger has captured the effects of light on a section of the skyline, depicting the dark shadow on one area and the bright white illumination of the building behind.
In contrast to the artist’s earlier work from his time in Germany, when he depicted street scenes with rigid, architectonic linear forms, Architecture with Stars II demonstrates Feininger’s new, looser graphic style in which he used light-filled planes of roughly applied colour to create the structure of the composition. Feininger wrote in 1942, three years before painting the present work, ‘I am busy at work on a collection of architectural “visions”… New York as a subject for translation into symbol of Space and Atmosphere… New York is the most amazing city in its atmosphere, colour, and contrasts in the whole world… Some of [my work] is in a definitely new application of oil technique, using some graphic elements of line in fields of vigorous colour’ (Feininger, quoted in H. Hess, Lyonel Feininger, New York, 1959, p. 148).
The work will be included in the Lyonel Feininger Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings edited by Achim Mœller.
Painted in 1945, Lyonel Feininger’s Architecture with Stars II takes as its subject the Manhattan skyline at night. American-born Feininger had moved to Germany in 1887 and remained there until 1937, when the Nazi regime forced him to leave and return to his native New York. Presenting a nocturnal cityscape under a softly luminous blue sky in which two shining stars and a sickle moon hang, Architecture with Stars II captures the atmospheric glow of the city at night.
On his arrival in New York, Feininger was at first overwhelmed by the city; he wrote, ‘I find myself in a state of continual wonderment… There is nothing that does not affect me in some way; every step I take…is a source of pure delight’ (Feininger, quoted in B. Haskell, Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World, exh. cat., New York, 2011, p. 154). However, his joy in rediscovering New York quickly faded as he experienced a sense of dislocation and displacement, coupled with dire financial circumstances. It was not until 1940 that the artist began to readjust and from this point he started to paint again, looking to the geometric architecture of Manhattan and its soaring skyscrapers adorned with thousands of windows, as a source of inspiration. The arrangement of buildings in Architecture with Stars II demonstrates Feininger’s interest in the architectural formation of the city. Feininger has captured the effects of light on a section of the skyline, depicting the dark shadow on one area and the bright white illumination of the building behind.
In contrast to the artist’s earlier work from his time in Germany, when he depicted street scenes with rigid, architectonic linear forms, Architecture with Stars II demonstrates Feininger’s new, looser graphic style in which he used light-filled planes of roughly applied colour to create the structure of the composition. Feininger wrote in 1942, three years before painting the present work, ‘I am busy at work on a collection of architectural “visions”… New York as a subject for translation into symbol of Space and Atmosphere… New York is the most amazing city in its atmosphere, colour, and contrasts in the whole world… Some of [my work] is in a definitely new application of oil technique, using some graphic elements of line in fields of vigorous colour’ (Feininger, quoted in H. Hess, Lyonel Feininger, New York, 1959, p. 148).