Lyonel Feininger
Dorf Niedergrunstedt VI
1914
Charcoal drawing, finely outlined in India ink, on laid paper 24.2 x 30.3 cm Signed, dated, and titled 'Feininger DORF NIEDERGRUNSTEDT VI SUNDAY. NOV. 8. 1914' in black India ink below the depiction. - Minor browning.
In 1906, Lyonel Feininger went to Weimar for the first time to visit his future wife Julia, who studied at the arts and crafts school there. In 1913, the artist himself moved into a studio in Weimar and from then on, on countless excursions on foot or by bicycle, explored the rural surroundings and the picturesque, historic villages between Weimar, Erfurt, and Jena in order to make sketches on site and collect a wide variety of inspiration for his drawings, watercolours, paintings, and prints. The small community of Niedergrunstedt, today part of Weimar, is also one of them. The artist masterfully transformed the picturesque half-timbered houses, bridges, and steps of the village into crystalline abstract forms in the composition of this charcoal drawing.
Provenance
Städtische Galerie Frankfurt am Main (stamped "St. G." (Lugt 2371c) and inv.no. "701" verso); confiscated as "degenerate" in, the work is listed in the inventory of the Forschungsstelle Entartete Kunst, FU, Berlin; Kunsthandel Bernhard Böhmer, Güstrow (1940); in German family possession since