Lot 319 D

Watercolour and pen and ink on chamois-coloured laid paper 25.7 x 46.5 cm, framed under glass. Signed, titled and dated 'Feininger Zwo Frachter 19.9.36' in pen and ink lower margin. - Very slightly browned with weak light-stains. Thumbtack holes along the margins.

With a photo-certificate from Achim Moeller, New York, dated 7 October 2013.
Achim Moeller, Managing Principal of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, has confirmed the authenticity of this work. It is registered in the Archive of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York - Berlin under the no. 1230-10-07-13.

Provenance
Galerie Ohse, Bremen (label on frame); family possession Walter Dexel; private possession

Exhibition
Tokyo 1966 (Minami Gallery), Feininger 1871-1956, cat. no. 2; Paris 1974 (Berggruen & Cie), Feininger: Huiles, aquarelles & dessins, cat. no. 59 with illus.; London 1975 (Achim Moeller Ltd.), Lyonel Feininger. Visions of City and Sea: Watercolours, Drawings, Paintings. A Tribute to the Late Hans Hess, cat. no. 32 with colour illus.; Hamburg 1978 (Levy Galerie), Lyonel Feininger, Bilder, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, cat. no. 29 with colour illus.; Wolgast/Flensburg 1999 (Museum der Stadt Wolgast/Schifffahrtsmuseum), Im Hafen von Peppermint: Die Schiffe Lyonel Feiningers, cat. no. 27, p. 50 with colour illus.

The last paintings made by Lyonel Feininger in Germany before he finally emigrated to the USA in 1937 depict the increasingly tense situation in which the artist found himself at the time. The forms became more compact, the colours denser and the more serious, dark tone of the images differed greatly from his previous artistic phases.
However, "Zwo Frachter" provides a thoroughly different impression: Feininger presents the freight ships after which the image is named with humour and ease, in a manner reminiscent of children's drawings. The boats seem to be at anchor on the still water surface, accompanied by tremendous clouds of smoke, receiving their cargo, a busy crew member can be seen on the left ship. The large, towering brown forms in front of the boats however leave room for interpretation. The mood of the drawing, in which Feininger has once again taken up one of his favourite motifs - the sea and ships - is imaginative and joyful.