Lyonel Feininger

Lyonel Feininger Locomotive (type Adler) Around 1913/1914 Wooden sculpture, painted in color by the artist. 5.7 x 11.7 x 3.3 cm. Numbered textile label "68.1019" and "68.1017b" under the locomotive. - With minimal traces of use. With a photo expertise by Achim Moeller, New York, Managing Director of the Lyonel Feininger Project LLC, New York, dated April 10, 2024 - The sculpture is registered under no. 1919-04-10-24. Provenance From the estate of the artist, Andreas Feininger, New York; private collection; Moeller Fine Art, New York; private collection USA. Exhibitions Frankfurt 2023/2024 (Schirn Kunsthalle), Lyonel Feininger. Retrospective, p. 38 with color illustrations, p. 267. With three model locomotives, a model railroad and six accompanying construction drawings, an ensemble of works by Lyonel Feininger that is extremely rare in the art trade is being offered for sale. These are the few surviving prototypes of wooden trains built around 1913, which the Munich toy manufacturer Otto Löwenstein was commissioned to produce on Feininger's behalf. Although Feininger had already applied for a patent for his "Block Railway", production had been prepared and even the cardboard packaging had been designed, industrial production had to be halted because the First World War broke out in August 1914. Feininger had been fascinated by railroads and the dynamics associated with them since childhood. In his early years in New York, he experienced the frenzy of Grand Central Station, which opened in the year of his birth, the construction of the elevated railroad over Second Avenue and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. As the epitome of modern engineering achievements, however, he was particularly enthusiastic about the large steam locomotives: "I often stood," he wrote in an autobiographical account, "on one of the long pedestrian bridges on Fourth Avenue that lead over the tracks of the New York Central Railway and watched the arriving and departing trains." (quoted from Martin Faass, Eine Phantasiewelt parallel zur Kunst Lyonel Feiningers Spielzeug, in: Jahrbuch des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, vol. 20, 2001, p. 116). With a great interest in all things technical, Feininger developed an enthusiasm for old-fashioned steam locomotives while still in the USA, which he repeatedly drew, sometimes painted and even built himself out of wood. After carving houses, churches, city gates and figures for his three sons, he developed prototypes for model trains for the toy industry around 1913. Even before his artistic breakthrough, Feininger hoped this would provide him with another source of income. As Martin Faass explains, he invented the "block train", a wooden train without wheels or tracks, which was simply pulled across the floor with its smooth underside. Beforehand, he took great pleasure in drawing detailed construction drawings of historical locomotives with their tenders and passenger carriages. He used the "Adler" built by Robert Stephenson in England and the American "Pacific" as models. He had the components for the prototypes made by a carpenter friend; he assembled the parts himself and painted them. (cf. Faass, ibid., p. 116). These were always historical railroads, because unlike the Futurists, Feininger's affinity for technology did not go hand in hand with a belief in progress. And yet he proved to be an expert in the subject matter, displaying the greatest technical precision in his design drawings, such as that of the "American passenger D-carriage "1915". As he wrote to his wife Julia on May 26, 1913, he was very enthusiastic about his work: "I am very firm with the models and build very sophisticated things and very carefully thought out in all parts [...]. In this work I am once again the happy boy of 15 years, and now it has a purpose on top of that." (quoted from T. Lux Feininger, Die Stadt am Ende der Welt, Munich 1965, p. 28). With a view to the planned production, he also saw the benefit of these designs: "And yet with a happy subconsciousness of doing something like a work that will soon be visible to hundreds of thousands and really enjoyable - not like 'lumpy oil paintings'." (quoted from T. Lux Feininger, ibid., p. 30). The works also have excellent provenance, having come from the estate of Feininger's eldest son Andreas Feininger or from the collection of the museum man and friend Alois J. Schardt. As director of the Municipal Museum in Halle from 1926, Schardt arranged Feininger's first important commission for a series of paintings of the Marktkirche in Halle (1929-1931).