Lot 298 D

Feininger immigrated to New York in 1937, above all, because he had been officially prohibited from painting in Germany. Around 400 of his works were confiscated from German museums and collections in the course of the “Degenerate Art” action. After initial - primarily financial - difficulties, he had soon also became a successful artist in the US; in 1944 Feininger's work received the distinction of a large retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Lutherstadt Eisleben, which is depicted in this watercolour, is located in the southern Harz mountains, not far from Halle. This sheet thus reflects Feininger's interest in and fondness for historical motifs. The row of houses painted with the fine lines typical of his work is rendered from memory alone; it corresponds to a romantic pictorial idea and not to the real topographical situation. We see houses from very different epochs, which have left their mark on the medieval town as artefacts of lived history. Feininger loved distinctive sceneries of this kind; in far-off America, he connected them with his image of his beloved Germany and thus also with sentimental memories of a happy past.