Seascape/Cityscape: The Art of Lyonel Feininger

The Norton Simon Museum celebrates its collection of works of art by Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) with Seascape/Cityscape: The Art of Lyonel Feininger,  an exhibition of fifty paintings, drawings, and prints. Feininger's art represents a fusion of Cubism and Expressionism, and his chosen subject matter ranges from comical city scenes to contemplative views of the Baltic Sea, where he often summered. 

Born in New York in 1871, Feininger matured at a time when modern technology—in the form of trains, ships, skyscrapers, and other industrial phenomena—was beginning to proliferate. Although he spent fifty years of his life in Germany, he always retained his American citizenship, and with it an attitude of optimism in the future, and faith in the possibilities of industry and technology.

Feininger is perhaps best known for two of his artistic affiliations: the Bauhaus, the influential Dessau art and architecture school where he taught from 1919-1926; and the Blue Four (or "Blaue Vier") a group of four artists founded by Galka Scheyer in 1926 for the purpose of exhibiting together, and including Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Alexei Jawlensky.