On Collecting:
Christmas Ghosts by T. Lux Feininger – figurative and abstract

4 Dez 2021 – 23 Jan 2022
Bauhaus Museum Dessau, Black Box

The estate of the Bauhaus student T. Lux Feininger (1910 – 2011) was added to the collection of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation this year as a permanent loan from his son, Conrad Feininger. Among the numerous works was a particularly christmassy painting: The Nativity of Laurence and Lux from 1992, tells of the visit of the Magi, a biblical scene in the context of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.

The theme of the painting, however, is above all the memory of a nativity scene that T. Lux Feininger had created together with his brother Laurence around 1920 from carved and painted wooden figures as a contribution to the family’s Christmas celebration. Their father Lyonel Feininger had inspired them to do so, as he himself had made small carved and painted figures as Christmas decorations on Christmas days for decades. The head of a black devil depicted in the painting, which hangs as an ornament on the Christmas tree, also refers to this. This devil’s head goes back to rituals intended to ward off evil. For the first time, Lyonel Feininger’s carving is now being exhibited at the Bauhaus Museum together with the painting. The December presentation is complemented on the one hand by hitherto hardly known Christmas graphics, postcards and photographs, and on the other hand by abstract compositions by T. Lux Feininger, which served as models for some of his works.

Conrad Feininger in conversation.