The Art of Lyonel Feininger
January 13, 2011 10:32 AM   Subscribe

 
Nice post -- thanks! The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena also has a nice collection of Feiningers (including a lot of letters with illustrations), though unfortunately they haven't yet put all the images online.
posted by scody at 10:50 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


The Katzenjammer Kids is another criminally underrated strip from the era. Hell, the whole era is underrated. No one today really comes close to dudes like Feininger, Herriman, McKay, and Gould. In fact, since Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side stopped running, the comics page is total shit. The best part nowadays is Family Circus just for the chance to have your mind blown at the total lack of any recognizable attempt at humor.

Krazy Kat was fucking gold, and Katzenjammer Kids is sort of halfway between Krazy and Little Nemo. It's got the bizarreness and horror of these malformed children and ultraviolent mice barely veiled by a cartoonish, colorful style like Krazy Kat and some of the composition and ornate work that went into Nemo. I guess because it wasn't quite as dry and strange as Krazy Kat or as well executed as Nemo (what could be?) it doesn't get quite as much attention as either, but it should.

But then MOMA is carrying it, so maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong crown of century-old comics lovers...
posted by cmoj at 10:53 AM on January 13, 2011


IT-department-URL-misparsing alert on that first link.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:56 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Thanks for posting this! Oh, how I loves me some Feininger. The fortunately wealthy parents of a close friend of mine have a surprisingly tasteful art collection that includes a smallish, cubist-esque Feininger woodblock print of an Austrian or German villagescape. The first time I saw it was the first time I had ever heard of him, and I still love that piece.

More Feininger goodness - this "staff" photo of the Bauhaus faculty (circa 1928?) includes Feininger. The assembled modernist talent in this single shot blows me away every time I see it.
posted by the painkiller at 11:03 AM on January 13, 2011 [1 favorite]




This is excellent, thanks! I've got a poster of a Feininger painting hanging on my wall, but I'd never given much attention to his comics.
posted by Wemmick at 11:34 AM on January 13, 2011


This is quite astounding artwork for a guy who was primarily known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. Some of it is very reminiscent of his famous Feininger diagrams.
posted by sour cream at 11:55 AM on January 13, 2011


The Green Bridge II is always my 1st stop at the NC Museum of Art. I love that painting - I'm so lucky to be able to see it in person!
posted by yoga at 12:00 PM on January 13, 2011


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