T. Lux Feininger

The Seine near Honfleur

   

The Seine near Honfleur
The Seine near Honfleur Repro: WS
  • 1933, in Paris
  • Oil on canvas
  • 20 18 × 38 14 inches(51 × 97 cm)

  • Inscr. lower left: Th. LUX

    TLF: "The Seine near Honfleur", 1933 [201]; "The Seine near Honfleur", 1933 Paris [202, Nr. 38]

    Private collection USA
    Provenance: 1934 sold from the exhibition at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, to Mr. Charles J. Connick, Boston; 2004 Skinner, Boston, MA, lot 312, sold to Mr. Ulrich W. Hiesinger, Philadelphia, PA

  • TLF: "In Paris, when I’d say that I would go to the Louvre, I meant; the Musée de Marine... The pull of it was a major factor in making me a painter. But – and here is an important discovery which came to me late in life, whereby possibly, answer might be made to that old and tiresome question of why I painted ships – not a marine artist but a poetic painter, depicting states of the soul.
    I connect this discovery (which came to me only gradually) with the large composition “The Seine near Honfleur” which I painted soon after my return. I never asked myself whether it had really been necessary to travel to this place in this tiresome way, in order to paint a female figure and an old-time sailing ship, neither of which I had seen there. Painters don’t ask that kind of a question. I know whom the figure represents, the bark is just right for the mood (I had been reading The Rover by Joseph Conrad), and the beacon, visible just ahead of the jibboom of the bark, is authentic – I sketched it on this trip. And, since the mood came to me at the mouth of the river Seine, what could be more natural than to give the picture this title? It is luminous, it is serene – but luminosity and serenity we find elsewhere, too – this particular serenity belongs to the mud of Honfleur reflecting Heaven at ebbtide."
    [205]

    [See below: Related artworks]

  • Themes:  Harbor & Sailors Ships-Sails

Exhibitions

The 1934 International Exhibition of Paintings. 1934 Pittsburgh

Literature

Zwei Welten - Mein Künstlerleben zwischen Bauhaus und Amerika. T. Lux Feininger 2011 Halle (Saale), S./p. 334. Abb./ill.

Welten-Segler - T. Lux Feininger zum 100. Geburtstag, Werke 1929-1942. Ulrich Luckhardt [Hg./ed.], Peter Thurmann [Hg./ed.], Wolfgang Büche, Dagmar Lott-Reschke 2010 Köln, S./p. 140. Abb./ill., Luckhardt 71

The 1934 International Exhibition of Paintings. 1934 Pittsburgh, No. 282 C.I. Catalogue

From the Carnegie Institute International Exhibition of Modern Paintings Pittsburgh. 1934 New York, S./p. 15, Abb./ill.

International Exhibit Offers Quality Range. Douglas Naylor 1934 Pittsburgh, Thirty-Eight, Abb./ill.

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