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The bodies and bicycles of five stylized cyclists fill this nearly square painting so parts of some of their bodies and bicycles are cut by the edges of the canvas. Shown against a background of mottled shell pink and light gray, the riders are closely packed, their wheels and bodies overlapping, and they seem close to us as they race to our right in profile. All lean low over their handlebars. The faces of the three riders at the front of the pack have lemon-yellow skin. The person at the top of the composition, seeming the farthest away from us, has ivory-colored skin, and the person at the back, to our left, has brown skin. They all wear different colored clothing. The racer at the front wears all black, and the one closest to us celery green with fuchsia around the hips. The cyclists farthest from us wear rust orange or canary yellow. The racer with brown skin wears frosty blue. The frames of the bicycles are dark forest green or black, and the colors of the wheels are either yellow or turquoise. The people’s faces and bodies are abstracted into flat, hard-edges shapes. The angles formed by their torsos, arms, and legs are echoed by the angles of their bicycles’ dark metal frames.

Lyonel Feininger

The Bicycle Race, 1912

East Building, Mezzanine — Gallery 217-B

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 80.3 × 100.3 cm (31 5/8 × 39 1/2 in.)

framed: 86.36 × 106.68 × 7.62 cm (34 × 42 × 3 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1985.64.17

Artists / Makers

Lyonel Feininger (artist) American, 1871 - 1956

Image Use

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Inscription

lower left: Feininger / 1912

Provenance

(Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Cologne), probably by 1951; Maria Möller-Garny, Cologne;[1] (Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York), by 1968;[2] purchased 24 October 1972 by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1985 to NGA.

[1] The painting is described in the literature as having been in "the Möller collection". Further research is needed to determine the exact sequence of ownership between Ferdinand Möller and Maria Möller-Garny, as they are each credited as lender of the painting to exhibitions in the 1950s and 1960s. Ferdinand Möller was also both a dealer and apparently a private collector, and it is uncertain whether the painting was part of the sale stock or the private collection.

[2] The painting is listed as "for sale" in the Hutton Galleries catalogue of their 1968 exhibition Fauves and Expressionists. In the 1970-1971 exhibition catalogue The Cubist Epoch, the painting is listed as being from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Hutton.

Associated Names

Galerie Ferdinand Möller
Hutton Galleries, Leonard
Mellon, Paul
Möller-Garny, Maria

Exhibition History

1913: Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin, 1913, no. 133.

1936: 30 Deutsche Künstler, Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Berlin, 1936.

1950: Ruhrfestspiele, Recklinghausen, Germany, 1950.

1951: Die Alten Meister der Modernen Kunst in Deutschland, Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Cologne, 1951-1952, no. 7.

1954: Lyonel Feininger, Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Munich; Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover, 1954, no. 3, repro.

1954: Lyonel Feininger, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1954-1955, no. 3, repro.

1955: Documenta: Kunst des XX. Jahrhunderts , Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, 1955, no. 164, pl. 6.

1957: Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts in Kölner Privatbesitz [Paintings of the 20th Century in Cologne Private Collections], Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 1957, no. 24, repro.

1959: Art in Revolt: Germany 1905-25. Exhibition in Aid of World Refugee Year, Marlborough Fine Art Limited, London, 1959, no. 44, repro.

1961: Der Sturm: Herwarth Walden und die Europäische Avantgarde, Berlin 1912-1932, Nationalgalerie, Orangerie des Schlosses Charlottenburg, Berlin, 1961, no. 92, repro.

1962: Europäische Kunst 1912, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 1962, no. 51, pl. 95.

1966: Sammlung Ferdinand Möller, Dom Galerie, Cologne, 1966, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1968: Fauves and Expressionists, Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York, 1968, no. 16, color repro.

1970: The Cubist Epoch, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1970-1971, no. 81, pl. 137.

1978: Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 15, repro.

1988: Mythos Italien: Wintermärchen Deutschland, Haus der Kunst, Munich, March-May 1988, no. 40, repro.

1988: Stationen der Moderne: Die bedeutenden Kunstausstellungen des 20. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, September-November 1988, no. 3/14, repro. (exhibition closed January 1989; NGA painting returned early to be included in 10th anniversary of the East Building installation).

1998: Lyonel Feininger: Von Gelmeroda nach Manhattan, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1998-1999, no. 17, repro.

1999: Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918, The Jewish Museum, New York, 1999-2000, no. 9, repro.

2002: The Avant-Garde in Danish and European Art 1909-19, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 2002-2003, no. 28, repro.

2003: Lyonel Feininger's Figurative Paintings, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2003-2004, no catalogue.

2006: Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso: Diálogo de Vanguardas [Avant-Garde Dialogues], Fundaçäo Calouste Gulbenkian, Temporary Exhibitions Gallery, Lisbon, 2006-2007, no. 58, repro.

2008: Lyonel Feininger Retrospective in Japan, Yokosuka Museum of Art; Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya; The Miyagi Museum of Art, Sendai, 2008-2009, no. 53, repro.

2011: Lyonel Feininger, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2011-2012, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 64.