T. Lux Feininger

T. Lux Feininger. Theodore Lux Feininger was a German-American painter, photographer, and art professor, renowned for his dynamic visual chronicles of the Bauhaus during its Dessau period. The youngest son of the celebrated painter Lyonel Feininger, he was immersed in the avant-garde from childhood, later becoming a defining photographic voice of the Bauhaus ethos. His work, spanning photography, painting, and teaching, captures the playful, experimental spirit of the interwar modernist movement.

Early life and family

Born in Berlin in 1910, Theodore Lux Feininger was the third son of the eminent painter Lyonel Feininger and artist Julia Feininger. His upbringing was steeped in a rich artistic milieu, with his father being a leading master at the Bauhaus and his older brothers, Andreas Feininger and Laurence Feininger, also pursuing significant careers in photography and musicology, respectively. In 1926, at just sixteen, he followed his family to Dessau and enrolled as a student at the Bauhaus, studying initially under Josef Albers in the preliminary course and later in the painting workshop. This environment, alongside figures like Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, fundamentally shaped his interdisciplinary approach to art.

Artistic career

At the Bauhaus, Feininger's primary focus was painting, and he became an active member of the Bauhaus stage workshop under Oskar Schlemmer, participating in performances that blended theater, dance, and visual art. His paintings from this era often reflected the school's principles of geometric abstraction and dynamic composition. After the Bauhaus closed under pressure from the Nazi Party in 1933, he spent several years in Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1936, joining his family who had already settled there. In America, he continued to paint, with his work evolving to include more figurative elements while retaining a structured, modernist clarity, and he began a long tenure teaching art and art history at Boston University.

Photography

Though largely self-taught, T. Lux Feininger produced his most historically significant work as a photographer at the Bauhaus. Using a simple Vest Pocket Kodak camera, he captured candid, energetic images of student life, architectural details of the Bauhaus Building designed by Walter Gropius, and theatrical productions. These photographs, characterized by unusual angles, strong contrasts, and a sense of spontaneous movement, became iconic documents of the Bauhaus spirit and are considered important contributions to the New Objectivity movement in German photography. His subjects often included fellow students and masters like Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stölzl, providing an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of one of the most influential art schools of the 20th century.

Later life and legacy

After his immigration, Feininger balanced his artistic practice with a distinguished academic career, teaching for over three decades at institutions including Boston University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In his later decades, he experienced a resurgence of interest in his early photographic work, which was featured in major international exhibitions on the Bauhaus at venues like the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He continued to paint and exhibit until his death in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2011. His legacy endures as a vital visual historian of the Bauhaus, whose photographs offer an irreplaceable glimpse into the community's innovative and collaborative daily life.

Selected works

* *Bauhaus Balconies* (photograph, c. 1929) * *The Stairway of the Bauhaus* (photograph, c. 1929) * *Oskar Schlemmer's *Bauhaus Dancers** (photograph series, c. 1929) * *Lyonel Feininger in his Studio* (photograph, 1935) * *Still Life with Bottles* (painting, 1950s) * *View of the Charles River* (painting, 1970s)

Category:German photographers Category:German painters Category:Bauhaus alumni Category:German emigrants to the United States Category:2011 deaths