Andreas Feininger

Feininger's photograph of the Bingham Canyon Mine

Andreas Bernhard Lyonel Feininger (27 December 1906 - 18 February 1999) was an American photographer, and writer on photographic technique, noted for his dynamic black-and-white scenes of Manhattan and studies of the structure of natural objects.

Biography

Feininger was born in Paris, France, to an American family of German origin. His father, painter Lyonel Feininger, was born in New York City, in 1871. His great-grandfather emigrated from Durlach, Baden, in Germany, to the United States in 1848.

Feininger grew up and was educated as an architect in Germany, where his father painted and taught at Staatliches Bauhaus. In 1936, he gave up architecture itself, moved to Sweden, and focused on photography. In advance of World War II, in 1939, Feininger immigrated to the U.S. where he established himself as a freelance photographer and in 1943 joined the staff of Life magazine, an association that lasted until 1962.

Feininger became famous for his photographs of New York. Science and nature, as seen in bones, shells, plants and minerals, were other frequent subjects, but rarely did he photograph people or make portraits. Feininger wrote comprehensive manuals about photography, of which the best known is The Complete Photographer. In the introduction to one of Feininger's books of photographs, Ralph Hattersley described him as "one of the great architects who helped create photography as we know it today." In 1966, the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) awarded Feininger its highest distinction, the Robert Leavitt Award. In 1991, the International Center of Photography awarded Feininger the Infinity Lifetime Achievement Award.

Today, Feininger's photographs are in the permanent collections of the Center for Creative Photography, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, London's Victoria and Albert Museum, and the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

Bibliography

• In a Grain of Sand: Exploring Design by Nature. (1986) Sierra Club Books, San Francisco
• Leaves. New York (1984)
• Industrial America (1981)
• Feininger's Chicago (1981)
• Feininger's Hamburg (1980)
• Light and Lighting in Photography (1976)
• Roots of Art (1974)
• The Perfect Photograph (1974)
• Darkroom Techniques (1974)
• Andreas Feininger (text by Ralph Hattersley) (1973)
• Principles of Composition (1973)
• Photographic Seeing (1973)
• Shells (1972)
• Basic Color Photography (1969)
• Trees (1968)
• Forms of Nature and Life (1966)
• Lyonel Feininger: City at the Edge of the World (text by T. Lux) (1965)
• Feininger. New York (1965)
• The Complete Photographer (1965)
• New York (1964)
• The World Through My Eyes (1963)
• Total Picture Control (1961)
• Maids, Madonnas and Witches (1961)
• The Anatomy of Nature (1956)
• Changing America (1955)
• The Creative Photographer (1955)
• Successful Color Photography (1954)
• Successful Photography (1954)
• The Face of New York (text by Susan E. Lyman) (1954)
• Reprint, New York (1953)
• Advanced Photography, New York (1952)
• Feininger on Photography (1949)
• New York (1945)
• New Paths in Photography (1939)
• Exakta - Ein Weg zu Foto-Neuland (1939)
• Motive im Gegenlicht (1939)
• Fotografische Gestaltung (1937)
• Entwickeln, Kopieren, Vergrossern (1936)
• Aufnahme-Technik (1936)
• Menschen vor der Kamera (1934)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Andreas Feininger

• Introduction to Feininger at George Eastman House
• ASMP interview with Andreas Feininger
• Andreas Feininger Photographs