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A highly stylized painting of a man in a stand of trees.

The painting is done in black with shades of green, brown, and bluish-white. The painting is divided into four diagonal planes of color, shades of green for the upper half, a band of bluish-white, followed by mottled brown and the lower left corner, bluish-white. Superimposed over the colored bands are trees shown as straight-edged forms with sharply angled triangular shapes branching from the upright rectangles. A small figure of a person in blue is on the brown plane.

Gallery Text

When Feininger painted this work in 1915, the American-born artist and former cartoonist was gaining prominence in Germany’s modern art circles. Avenue of Trees reflects a shift away from his early figurative painting toward a new style inspired by the spatial investigations of cubism. The work of Picasso and Braque intrigued many artists in Germany. Some, like Feininger, had encountered it in Paris. Others had seen it in exhibitions such as those organized by the pioneering Galerie der Sturm in Berlin, which exhibited this painting in 1917 under the French title Allée. Employing a technique of faceting and fragmenting, Feininger transforms a scene derived from nature into a crystalline world of intersecting geometric planes that in places verges on abstraction. By the time Feininger became a master at the Bauhaus in 1919, his paintings had become increasingly architectonic and abstract, and the human figure had all but disappeared.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2007.17
People
Lyonel Feininger, American (New York, NY 1871 - 1956 New York, NY)
Title
Avenue of Trees
Other Titles
Former Title: Allee
Alternate Title: Alley of Trees
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1915
Culture
German
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/317622

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
80.5 x 100.5 cm (31 11/16 x 39 9/16 in.)
frame: 95.3 x 114.5 x 5.1 cm (37 1/2 x 45 1/16 x 2 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
The artist (1915-1956) by descent; to Julia Feininger, New York (1956-1970). William S. Lieberman, New York (by 1973-2006), bequest; to Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2006.

Note: Painting may have passed from Julia Feininger to William S. Lieberman by gift or bequest.

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Standard Reference Number
Hess, 133

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Bequest of William S. Lieberman
Copyright
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Accession Year
2007
Object Number
2007.17
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Howard Devree, A Famous Group: Exhibition of Work of The Blue Rider Reveals Continuing Influence, The New York Times (New York, 1954), X13, p. X13, ill.
  • Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1961), cat. no. 133
  • Douglas Cooper, The Cubist Epoch, Phaidon Press Limited, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (London and New York, 1971), p. 145, plate 141, ill.
  • Lyonel Feininger, Lyonel Feininger, exh. cat., Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Haus der Kunst München, and Kunsthaus Zürich (Munich, 1973), Cat. no. 86, ill. (b/w)
  • Dr. Ulrich Luckhardt, Lyonel Feininger, Prestel Verlag (Munich, 1989), p. 88, no. 20
  • Lisa M. Messinger, The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Federation of Arts and Rizzoli (New York, 1991), p. 114
  • Vivian Endicott Barnett, Die Blaue Vier : Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee in der Neuen Welt, exh. cat., ed. Vivian Endicott Barnett and Josef Helfenstein, DuMont (Cologne, 1997), p. 152, no. 2, ill. (color)
  • Thomas W. Lentz, ed., Harvard University Art Museums Annual Report 2006-7, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, 2008), p. 31, ill.
  • Peter Nisbet, Lyonel Feininger Drawings and Watercolors, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums and Hatje Cantz (Cambridge, MA and Ostfildern, Germany, 2011), p. 131, fig. 20
  • Laura Muir, Lyonel Feininger: Photographs, 1928-1939, exh. cat. (Ostfildern, Germany, 2011), p. 26, fig. 12, ill.
  • Will Grohmann, Im Netzwerk der Moderne: Kirchner, Braque, Kandinsky, Klee, Richter, Bacon, Altenbourg, und ihr Kritiker, exh. cat., Hirmer (Dresden, Germany, 2012), pp. 128-131, ill. (color)
  • Ingrid Pfeiffer, ed., Lyonel Feininger: Retrospective, exh. cat., Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and Hirmer Verlag (Frankfurt and Munich, 2023), pp. 60-61, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • Fünfundfündfzigste Ausstelung: Lyomel Feininger, Gemälde und Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Galerie Der Sturm, Berlin, 09/01/1917 - 09/30/1917
  • 48, Ausstellung: Lyonel Feininger, Neue Kunst Hans Goltz, Munich, 10/01/1918 - 10/31/1918
  • Lyonel Feininger, Folkwang Museum, Hagen, 02/01/1919 - 03/31/1919
  • Lyonel Feininger: Sonder-Ausstellung seiner Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen und Holzschnitte, Galerie Emil Richter, Dresden, 09/01/1919 - 09/30/1919
  • Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger: Gemälde, Graphik, XXIX, Sonder-Ausstellung, Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover, 11/30/1919 - 01/01/1920
  • Lyonel Feininger: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen 1907-1921, Kunstvereins-Heim, Erfurt, 11/06/1921 - 12/04/1921
  • The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, The Oakland Art Gallery, 05/22/1926 - 06/15/1926
  • The Blue Four, Portland Art Museum, 04/01/1927 - 04/30/1927; Spokane Art Association, 05/15/2016 - 05/31/2016
  • The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Harry Braxton Gallery, Hollywood, 04/15/1930 - 04/30/1930
  • Presenting Lyonel Feininger: A Retrospective Exhibition at the University of Minnesota, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, 04/01/1938 - 04/30/1938
  • Lyonel Feininger, Marsden Hartley, The Museum of Modern Art, 10/24/1944 - 01/14/1945
  • Lyonel Feininger, Curt Valentin Gallery, 03/18/1952 - 04/12/1952
  • Der Blaue Reiter, Curt Valentin Gallery, 12/07/1954 - 01/08/1955
  • Artists of the Blaue Reiter: Exhibition of Painting and Graphic Works, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 01/21/1955 - 02/24/1955
  • Lyonel Feininger: Memorial Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, 11/05/1959 - 12/13/1959; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 01/05/1960 - 02/07/1960; Cleveland Museum of Art, 02/18/1960 - 03/20/1960; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 04/08/1960 - 05/08/1960; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 05/19/1960 - 06/26/1960
  • Lyonel Feininger 1871-1956: Gedächtnis-Ausstellung, Kunstverein Hamburg, 01/21/1961 - 03/05/1961; Museum Folkwang Essen, 03/15/1961 - 05/07/1961; Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 05/14/1961 - 06/25/1961
  • Lyonel Feininger: A Retrospective, Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, 04/10/1963 - 05/05/1963
  • Feininger: Oils and Watercolors 1908-1955, Marian Willard Gallery, 04/14/1964 - 05/16/1964
  • 1914: An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Created in 1914, Baltimore Museum of Art, 10/06/1964 - 11/15/1964
  • Lyonel Feininger, Haus der Kunst München, 03/24/1973 - 05/13/1973; Kunsthaus Zürich, 05/25/1973 - 07/22/1973
  • Lyonel Feininger 1871-1956: Lent by the Brooklyn Museum, THe Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach Florida, 03/12/1976 - 04/11/1976
  • The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philbrook Museum of Art, 04/14/1991 - 06/09/1991; Center for Fine Arts, Miami, 06/29/1991 - 08/24/1991; Joslyn Art Museum, 09/14/1991 - 11/10/1991; Tampa Museum of Art, 12/14/1991 - 02/08/1992; Greenville County Museum of Art, 03/17/1992 - 05/10/1992; Madison Art Center, 06/06/1992 - 08/02/1992; Grand Rapids Art Museum, 09/11/1992 - 11/08/1992
  • Die Blaue Vier: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee in der Neuen Welt, Kunstmuseum Bern, 12/05/1997 - 03/01/1998; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 03/28/1998 - 06/28/1998
  • Lyonel Feininger - The early paintings 1907-1918, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, 09/17/2006 - 01/07/2007
  • Lyonel Feininger: Drawings and Watercolors from the William S. Lieberman Bequest to the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, 02/26/2011 - 05/15/2011
  • Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 06/30/2011 - 10/16/2011; The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, 01/16/2012 - 05/13/2012
  • In the Network of Modernism. Kirchner, Braque, Kandinsky, Klee ... Richter, Bacon, Altenbourg and their critic Will Grohmann, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, Dresden, 09/27/2012 - 01/06/2013
  • 32Q: 1300 Early Modernism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 10/02/2023
  • Lyonel Feininger Retrospective, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 10/26/2023 - 02/18/2024

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • The Bauhaus

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu