LYONEL FEININGER - THE RUIN BY THE SEA
Edited by William S. Lieberman with an Introduction by Eila Kokkinen
Published in 1968 by The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Softcover, 32 Pages
- From 1924 through 1935, Lyonel Feininger spent summer vacations at Deep in Pomerania on the Baltic coast, now in East Germany.
Sometimes accompanied by members of his family but often alone, he reserved these months for drawings and watercolour as a
respite from easel painting. A wild and unpopulated resort, Deep lacked the comforts of previous vacation spots. Nontheless,
Feininger was annually drawn back by its deserted beaches and the variable and stormy climate which produced a spectacle of
changing sea and sky. Walking along the windswept beach and sketching the sea in its many aspects were a part of his daily life
at Deep. While there, on July 11, 1928, during an excursion to the nearby village of Hoff in the company of his second son
Laurence, Feininger spotted a curious structure at the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, and described it in a letter to his wife,
Julia: "The coast is high and steep, beautifully vast in lines, but large stretches are crumbling away, for the rains have caused
landslides. Far away, at the highest and steepest point stood something puzzling, a bulky cube which might have been a fort but,
in fact, was quite something else. There on top of the edge of the precipice, and without a doubt doomed to perdition, stood
the ruins of a church. I was completely mystified. Usin my Zeiss field glasses I studied the thing, I made sketches, and visions
of pictures arose in my mind ......... (taken from the introduction). - The lovely plates of his 'studies' are reproduced in this lovely
little book.
This lovely book is in excellent condition. It is also in limited supply.
