Rev. Dr. Laurence Feininger, Trento
Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Rome & Zurich
Sale: Van Ham Kunstauktionen, Cologne, May 28, 2014, lot 30
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

New York, Buchholz Gallery, Lyonel Feininger, 1950, no. 1
Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Work of Lyonel Feininger, 1951, no. 42
New York, Curt Valentin Gallery, Lyonel Feininger, 1952, no. 19, illustrated in the catalogue
Munich, Bayerische Akademi der Schönen Künste & Hannover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Lyonel Feininger, 1954, no. 30
Rome, Marlborough Gallery, Lyonel Feininger, 1971, no. 10

Hans Hess, Lyonel Feininger, New York, 1961, no. 480, illustrated p. 480

Canvas is wax lined. Some thin lines of craquelure scattered throughout. Surface is slightly dirty. Under UV light no inpainting is apparent. This work is in very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Afterglow II embodies Feininger’s desire to reduce figurative subjects to fundamental geometric forms, most notably in the shape of the distinctive sailboats he economically rendered in his works from this period. Feininger’s interests in the interaction of line, form and color, not to mention the reduction of figuration, reached a zenith during the last decade of his career. In this work he has further reduced his abstract sailboats to vertical lines to showcase their movement, meanwhile applying dense patches of white to represent sails moving across the sea of green and blue. He employs human figures as repoussoir devices in the foreground to accentuate the fluctuating light that dances upon the reflective surface of the water.

Feininger explained the importance of these reductive techniques to his son Lux in September 1955: "I incline ever more to reduce my language in painting to the merest essences of line and colour; as a painter I am hopelessly bound even though I have an appreciation for the properties of pigments in using them in my own sparse way. I am nearing a stage where I am even commencing to annihilate precise form, in the interest—as it seems to me—of unity" (quoted in Ulrich Luckhardt, Lyonel Feininger, Munich, 1989, p. 168).

Fig. 1 Lyonel Feininger, Sails, 1954, oil on canvas, soꦕld: Sotheby’s New York, May 8, 2014,♛ lot 133 for $3,189,000

Fig. 2 Feininger with his son Lux and his grandson Tomas at the Central Park Y𝐆acht Pond in 1951