작품 상세

Signed 'LUX' in white lower left. Inscribed "Th. Lux: Outward Bound" to stretcher from an unknown hand. This view of massive sailing ships in full sail reveals the passion with which the fervent ship painter T. Lux Feininger dedicated himself to his subject matter. Using an extreme horizontal format, he has created a panorama that reflects the breadth of the sea and impressively brings out the spatial depth of the ranked formation of ships. With these magnificent tall ships he payed homage to a bygone maritime epoch, whose last representatives could still occasionally be seen in the early 1930s. Thus, in his memoirs, he describes a stay in the town of Quimper in Brittany in 1931: “I saw with my own eyes a few of the last commercial square-rig ships still in use, topsail schooners built in the Breton manner; we saw as many as three of them on the quay of Douarnenez, where they were unloading timber. It was amazing how many sailing boats (cutters and luggers) were still there” (cited in: T. Lux Feininger, Zwei Welten, op. cit., p. 116). This work, which was created in the Pomeranian village of Mrzeżyno in 1932, was of special significance for the artist, because it led to his first success in the US, before he had even moved there. “I painted until the final minute of our stay, and one of the paintings from this period, the “Outward Bound Fleet (Auslaufende Flotte)”, proved to be my entry ticket for the “International Carnegie Exhibition” of 1932.” (op. cit., p. 119). Ultimately, it was shown not in 1932, but at the Carnegie International of the following year, where it was hung prominently next to paintings by artists such as Hermann Max Pechstein, Georg Schrimpf and Erich Heckel.