T. Lux Feininger

Protest Rally at the Bauhaus I. Werner Siedhoff, Naftali Rubinstein, Albert Mentzel, smoking

Protestkundgebung am Bauhaus I. Werner Siedhoff, Naf Rubinstein, Albert Mentzel, rauchend (Drei Bauhäusler)

Protest Rally at the Bauhaus I. Werner Siedhoff, Naftali Rubinstein, Albert Mentzel, smoking

Repro: MAIN

1931, in Dessau
Negative untraceable; Copy-film negative produced by the artist 1980, inscr. upper right: 11, 90 x 120 mm
Prints known:
1. SFMOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Clinton Walker Fund, Inv. Nr.: 83.6, gelatin silver print, 80 x 111 mm. Verso inscr.: 29, 183%, and Inv. Nr.
2. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Inv. Nr.: 85.XP.260.192, Agfa Lupex gelatin silver print, 85 x 116 mm. Verso inscr. XVIII, 45, and Inv. Nr.
3. Privatsammlung, later print, gelatin silver print, 203 x 255 mm, Verso inscr. by the artist: Lux Feininger, Copy photo, Cat. 11 2.Tripel-Portrait Siedhoff, Rubinstein, Menzel (triple portrait group ...) (1931)
4. Collection Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Inv.-Nr. A8638PH1 (Trois Étudiants du Bauhaus, vers 1928), gelatin silver print, 89 x 118 mm

Copy prints known:
I. Private collection, later print, Kodak paper, 203 x 254 mm. Verso inscr.: 85.XP.260.192, FEININGER, T. LUX
TLF: "[Photo] By me. A group of clowning students; l. to r.: Werner Siedhoff, Naphtalie Rubinstein, Albert Menzel. About 1930. Several photographs were taken during this action, which was a protest against the dismissal without a proper hearing of Director Hannes Meyer." [215]

Quote from the files of SFMOMA, re. exhibition 1983, author not identified: "Lux Feininger, the son of Lyonel Feininger, the painter and teacher at the Bauhaus, has a special affinity for cameras. As a student at the Bauhaus he saw how others used photography to record events occuring at the school or students at work or play in the studios or outside the buildings. The Lionel Feininger and Moholy-Nagy families shared a duplex house at the Bauhaus. As a consequence young Lux was aquainted with Moholy and knew of his pictures made shooting up or down to enliven the sense of perspective.
While not one of his student's, Lux, more than any of those who studied with Moholy, grasped the dynamic effects created by pointing one's camera up at a subject. The picture reproduced here, made of a group of student's on the Bauhaus playing field, demonstrates this point. The picture was made during a protest rally that took place when the school's director Hannes Meyer was dismissed from his position. The unshaven faces and blowing of small clouds of smoke were signs of the students' dissatisfaction with what had taken place. The perspective Feininger chose gave a sense of importance to this informal gathering of protesting students photographed as if they were part of a chorus.
Themes: Bauhaus

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T. Lux Feininger

Protest Rally at the Bauhaus I. Werner Siedhoff, Naftali Rubinstein, Albert Mentzel, smoking

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