Feininger began this scene of a tugboat towing a sailing ship decked with French and German flags during a summer holiday on the Baltic coast in 1934. He finished it three years later, reinforcing the straight, slender lines of the ships and rigging with pencil applied over the paint layers, on the eve of his departure from Germany. The Bauhaus—a progressive and hugely influential art school where Feininger had held various appointments since 1919—was forcibly closed by the Nazi government in 1933, and Feininger’s art was declared entartete (degenerate). Forced to flee his adopted homeland, Feininger returned to the United States in June 1937. With crisp lines, a bright palette, and the friendly juxtaposition of French and German flags, this composition conveys an optimism at odds with the grim historical circumstances in which it was painted.
Details
- Artist Name: Lyonel Feininger (American, 1871-1956)
- Title: The Tug
- Date: 1934-1937
- Medium: Oil and pencil on canvas
- Dimensions: 16 x 19 in. (40.6 x 48.3 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mrs. Matilda H. Rummage
- Accession Number: P.1992.2.1
- Copyright: © Lyonel Feininger / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Object Information
The Museum of Modern Art, New York for;
Frederica P. (Mrs. Harry L. S.) Halley, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 8 April 1946, by descent to;
Mrs. Matilda H. Rummage, Woodland Hills, California, bequeathed 29 June 1992 to;
Norton Simon Museum.
Lyonel Feininger
- New York, Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan (and Karl Neirendorf), 1938-11-07 to 1938-11-26
Lyonel Feininger
- New York, Buchholz Gallery and Willard Gallery, 1941-03-11 to 1941-03-29
Lyonel Feininger-Marsden Hartly
- Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 1944-11 to
- Poughkeepsie, Vassar College, Art Gallery, to
- Symphony Hall (Boston, Mass.), to
- San Francisco Museum of Art, to
- City Art Museum of St. Louis, to
- St. Paul, Minnesota, St. Paul Gallery and School of Art, to
- Texas, Fourt Worth Art Association, to
- Albright-Knox Art Gallery, to
- Tulsa, Oklahoma, Philbrook Art Center, to
- Louisville, J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, to
Tulsa Collects
- Tulsa, Oklahoma, Philbrook Art Center, 1958-10-06 to 1958-11-25
The Blue Four-Galka Scheyer Collection From The Norton Simon Museum
- Henry Art Gallery, 1997-07-17 to 1997-10-05
Lyonel Feininger 1871-1956: A Memorial Exhibition
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1966-04-26 to 1966-05-29
- Milwaukee Art Center, 1966-07-10 to 1966-08-11
- Baltimore Museum of Art, 1966-09-07 to 1966-10-23
Seascape/Cityscape: The Art of Lyonel Feininger
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-07-15 to 1994-01-09
The Art of Giving: Recent Acquisitions of the Norton Simon Museum
- Norton Simon Museum, 2002-08-02 to 2002-11-04
Bauhaus Painters; Spirit of Modernism: Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Oskar Schlemmer, Alexander Archipenko, Alexei Jawlensky and Others
- Seoul, Ho-Am Art Museum, 1996-02-08 to 1996-04-28
My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue Four
- Norton Simon Museum, 2002-12-13 to 2003-04-14
The Spirit of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in the New World
- Norton Simon Museum, 1994-11-17 to 1996-01-14
- Lyonel Feininger, p. 25
- Hesse, Hans, Lionel Feininger, 1961, no. 380 p. 284
- Barnett, Vivian Endicott, The Blue Four Collection at the Norton Simon Museum, 2002, no. 037 pp. 53-54
Additional Artwork by Artist
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