Lyonel Feininger - "Iceberg". Watercolor and ink... Lot 728

Lyonel Feininger - "Iceberg". Watercolor and ink on brownish wove paper. (19)33. Approx. 26.5 x 37.5 cm. Signed lower left, titled lower center, dated lower right. - Painted in 1933, during a difficult time for Feininger - Pictures of the sea dominate the artist's work in these years - Typical paper work of Feininger: prismatically broken pictorial elements in ink are filled with watercolor The watercolor painted in 1933 Feininger in an increasingly difficult time for him. In 1932, after a long period of threats, the Bauhaus in Dessau, where Lyonel Feininger was teaching, was closed by order of the newly elected National Socialist district council. Like many of their friends and colleagues at the Bauhaus, the Feiningers are then forced to move and earn their living elsewhere. Feininger lives with his wife Julia alternately in the seaside resort of Deep on the Baltic coast and in Berlin. He works little and feels increasingly isolated and alienated as the political repression of the Nazi regime spreads throughout the country. During this time, images of the sea dominate his work. Amidst the increasing turmoil in the world around him, work by the sea offers the artist a welcome refuge: "The most beautiful landscape cannot hold my fascinated attention like nature by the sea and everything connected with water." (Lyonel Feininger, City and Sea 1905-1955, exhibition catalog, London 1998, p. 2). In his works on paper, as in our watercolor, Feininger lays out the basic compositional framework as a pen and ink drawing with the typical pictorial elements that appear as if prismatically broken, which he then fills with color. However, Feininger has left out the blue of the sea in some places, which makes the surface of the water appear restless. In the foreground of the painting, a boat is sailing with full sails; behind it, a large iceberg juts into the black night sky - the scene appears threatening and probably reflects the situation Feininger found himself in at the time. 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 04-07-94-106. A photographic expertise is being prepared. Provenance: Feininger estate, with estate stamp on verso; private property, southern Germany (for about 40 years); private property, southern Germany, inherited by the current owner. With a photographic certificate dated 18.10.2022. Taxation: Differential tax VAT: Margin Scheme