{"data":{"id":"417","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":417,"topgoose_id":2152,"tms_id":417,"display_name":"Lyonel Feininger","sort_name":"Feininger Lyonel","display_date":"1871–1956","begin_date":"1871","end_date":"1956","biography":"\u003cp\u003eBorn in New York to German-American\nparents, Lyonel Feininger straddled two\nworlds. He spent much of his career in\nGermany, where he was a leading member\nof the avant-garde Expressionist groups\nDie Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. But he\nreturned to the United States in 1937 under\nthe threat of Nazi persecution.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of Feininger’s most cherished\nand enduring subjects throughout his years\nin Germany was the church at Gelmeroda,\na small village on the outskirts of Weimar.\nThe Gothic structure appeared in his work as\nearly as 1908 and he eventually created\na series of thirteen monumental oils\ndevoted to the church and its spire that were\nexecuted over more than two decades.\nPainted not long after Feininger began\nteaching at the nearby Bauhaus, \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/386\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eGelmeroda,\nVIII\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e includes overlapping, prismatic planes\nof diaphanous color that infuse the modest\nstructure with a sense of epic grandeur.\nAt the composition’s lower edge, a group of\nchurchgoers is rendered as a series of\nsemitranslucent triangles, their diminutive\nsize reinforcing the church’s monumentality.\nBy portraying the fourteenth-century\nstructure in a language of geometric\nabstraction, Feininger sought to reconcile\nmodern imperatives with the romantic\nspirituality of Germany’s past. This objective\nreflected the utopian aspirations expressed\nby the Bauhaus in its manifesto, which\nused a woodcut by Feininger of a Gothic\ncathedral to represent its mission of\nuniting painting, architecture, and sculpture.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500115308","wikidata_id":"Q158255","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:11:16.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-26T01:33:58.759-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/417/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/417/exhibitions"}}}}