T. Lux Feininger
Theodore Lukas (alias T. Lux) Feininger (June 11, 1910 Berlin, Germany – July 7, 2011 Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a German-American painter, avant-garde photographer, author, and art teacher who was born in Berlin to Julia (née Lilienfeld) and Lyonel Feininger, an American living in Germany from the age of sixteen. His father was appointed as the Master of the Printing Workingshop at the newly formed Bauhaus art school in Weimar by Walter Gropius in 1919. He had two older full brothers, namely Andreas Feininger, and Laurence Feininger, as well as two half sisters, even older, including Lore Feininger, by Clara Fürst and his father (from his first marriage).
Also recorded as Lux Feininger · Theodore Lukas Feininger · Lukas Feininger · Theodor Luke Feininger
T. Lux Feininger

Theodore Lux Feininger, Birkho · Public domain
- Name
- T.
- Born
- 11 June 1910
- Birthplace
- Berlin, Germany
- Died
- 7 July 2011
- Place of death
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- Spouse
- Jeanne (married????–????; her death) Patricia Randall (married 1954–????)
- Nationality
- Germany and United States.
- Occupation
- photographer, writer, painter, teacher and artist.
- Fields
- painting and photography.
- Education
- Bauhaus.
- Languages
- English.
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Documentary summary
Theodore Lukas (alias T. Lux) Feininger (June 11, 1910 Berlin, Germany – July 7, 2011 Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a German-American painter, avant-garde photographer, author, and art teacher who was born in Berlin to Julia (née Lilienfeld) and Lyonel Feininger, an American living in Germany from the age of sixteen. His father was appointed as the Master of the Printing Workingshop at the newly formed Bauhaus art school in Weimar by Walter Gropius in 1919. He had two older full brothers, namely Andreas Feininger, and Laurence Feininger, as well as two half sisters, even older, including Lore Feininger, by Clara Fürst and his father (from his first marriage).
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T. Lux Feininger (1910–2011) was an artist, author and painter, among other activities, of German and American nationality. The artist was born in Berlin and died in Cambridge.
T. Lux Feininger was educated at Bauhaus. The artist worked for Harvard University and worked in Berlin, New York City and Paris. Activity centred on painting and photography.
Languages used include English. Works are held at Harry Ransom Center, Harvard Art Museums and Museum of Modern Art, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 30 September 2026
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gnd · 2170843-5 · wikidata · Q216570 · wikipedia · T. Lux Feininger
In this article
Biography
Biography
Lux Feininger studied at Bauhaus. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is painting and photography. Places of work recorded in the authority are Berlin, Paris and New York City. Employment is recorded with Harvard University. Work by T. Lux Feininger is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Canada, Harry Ransom Center, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — T. Lux Feininger • Born — 11 June 1910 • Birthplace — Berlin, Germany • Died — 7 July 2011 • Place of death — Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States • Children — Charles, Conrad, and Lucas • Father — Lyonel Feininger • Mother — Julia Feininger • Spouse — Jeanne (married????–????; her death) Patricia Randall (married 1954–????)
Early career begins with photography
Early career begins with photography
At sixteen, Lux Feininger became a student at the Bauhaus at Dessau, where he studied painting with Josef Albers, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky, played in the Bauhauskapelle, the Bauhaus jazz band, and participated in experimental theater. It was here that he began taking photographs and assumed the role of an artistic photojournalist chronicling the daily life at Bauhaus. Although no photographic studio was part of the Bauhaus until 1929, his photography was influenced by the aesthetic of László Moholy-Nagy, who lived adjacent to the Feininger family. Soon Feininger was selling his photographs to periodicals and newspapers through an agency. By 1929 his work was featured in Film und Foto, a survey of modern photography. A retrospective of his early photography was held in 1962 at the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in 2001, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Manhattan, showed his works at an exhibit entitled, Dancing on the Roof: Photography and the Bauhaus (1923-1929).
Painting career begins in 1929
Painting career begins in 1929
In 1929 he also began to exhibit his paintings under a pseudonym, Theodore Lux, by which his stated intention was to avoid preferential treatment arising from the fame of his father. These are his first and second given names without his family name, he had never used his first name prior to this time. His initial paintings included maritime subjects, frequently of old sailing ships. From 1930 to 1935 he spent time in Paris. In 1936 Feininger left Germany and settled in the United States. His family had been targeted by the Nazis as undesirable foreigners participating in "decadent" cultural activities and they, along with many Bauhaus artists and designers, emigrated. The majority of the negatives for his collection of photographs had been left behind during his departure from Germany and none of these have been recovered. In 1937 he had his first solo show of paintings in Manhattan. Transportation subjects such as train locomotives, as well as, toys were featured in his paintings along with what The New York Times described as, striking self-portraits. After the United States entered World War II, Feininger served in its army intelligence. In 1947 he ceased using the pseudonym to sign his paintings and began using his family name in his signature. During the 1940s he continued his photography as a personal activity only, focusing upon transportation subjects that included ferries, ships, trains, and trucks as well as street scenes in Manhattan. He never exhibited this later photography, however, and completely abandoned the art in 1950s. During the 1950s Feininger painted a mural in the home of John M. van Beuren that was being built near Morristown, New Jersey by architect, Bertrand Goldberg. A personal friend of Feininger, van Beuren was the brother of Michael van Beuren, a Bauhaus furniture designer who hosted Gropius and other Bauhaus staff and faculty members fleeing the Nazis, at a van Beuren family residence in México while they relocated and selected destinations in the Americas for refuge. The mural was not able to be relocated when van Beuren commissioned Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the next home built for van Beuren nearby on the family estate, but it was documented by other members of the Bauhaus community. By the 1960s Feininger had adopted the semi-abstract prismatic painting style of his father and Kandinsky. He continued to paint for the remainder of his life. A joint exhibition of Feininger's paintings was held in 2010 at the Berlin and the Manhattan galleries of Moeller Fine Art. In 2011 the Kunsthalle in Kiel, Germany presented a traveling exhibition, World Sailor: T. Lux Feininger on His 100th Birthday, that also was exhibited at the Lyonel Feininger Gallery in Quedlinburg, Germany, a town now on the UNESCO world heritage list.
Personal information
Personal information
Feininger's first wife, Jeanne, died within a few years of their marriage. In 1954 he married Patricia Randall and they had three sons, Charles, Conrad, and Lucas. Lux Feininger lived to be 101 years old, dying on July 7, 2011, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
The authorities additionally record the headings Lux Feininger, Theodore Lukas Feininger, Lukas Feininger, Theodor Luke Feininger and Theodore Lux Feininger. His recorded language was English. He was the child of Lyonel Feininger and Julia Feininger.
Identity
Identity
What the record establishes about T. Lux Feininger is recorded with the occupation photographer. Lux Feininger is recorded with the occupation teacher. Lux Feininger is recorded with the occupation painter. Lux Feininger is recorded with the occupation author. Lux Feininger is recorded with the occupation writer. Lux Feininger is recorded with the occupation artist. Lux Feininger is recorded as photographer, writer, painter, teacher and artist. Recognition and collections. Work by T.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1910
T. Lux Feininger was born on 11 June 1910.
2011
T. Lux Feininger died on 7 July 2011.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
T. Lux Feininger was born at Berlin.
Birthplace
T. Lux Feininger died at Cambridge.
Deathplace
Berlin.
Birth place
Cambridge.
Death place
Writing and teaching
Writing was another professional activity by Feininger and he wrote several books. He was considered an accomplished writer with a distinctive style. In 1965 he authored a book, entitled Lyonel Feininger: City at the Edge of the World, about his father and his wooden sculptures of toy ships, trains, and fantasy cities, for which his brother, the photographer Andreas Feininger, provided the photographs. In 2001 Hatje Cantz Verlag in Stuttgart published his, Feininger, A family of artists, which was edited by Wolfgang Büche. In 2006 the German publishing house Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale), published his, Two Worlds: My life as an artist between Bauhaus and America. Feininger taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard's Fogg Museum, and the School of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston before his retirement in 1975.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “T. Lux Feininger”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q216570: T. Lux Feininger
General reference · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Bauhaus100. Lyonel Feininger (Accessed: 3 February 2017
- 2.Bauhaus100. Members of the Bauhaus Band (Accessed: 10 February 2017)
- 3.Röseler, Clemens, T. Lux Feininger (American (born Germany), Berlin 1910–2011 Cambridge, Massachusetts), Collections, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- 4.Feiniger, Lyonel, Photograph of Lux Feininger and Michael van Beuren in Siemensstadt, 1935 Busch-Reisinger Museum, Division of Modern and Contemporary Art
- 5.Hernandez, Daniel, Footprints of the Bauhaus in Mexico: Exploring the legacy of Michael van Beuren, Los Angeles Times, July 13, 2010
- 6.Abren la exposición "Huellas de la Bauhaus. Van Beuren", México que recrea una era en el diseño de muebles
- 7.Grimes, William, T. Lux Feininger, Photographer and Painter, dies at 101, The New York Times, July 13, 2011
- 8.Marquard, Bryan, T. Lux Feininger, 101; and artist whose career spanned oceans and media, The Boston Globe, July 18, 2011
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- Obituary — Theodore Lux Feininger, Brown and Hicky Funeral Home, July 2011
- Biography — T. Lux Feininger, collections, The J. Paul Getty Museum,
- Oral history — Oral history interview with T. Lux Feininger, conducted by Robert F. Brown 1987 May 19-1988 March 17, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
References
Citations
References
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reference work
Secondary witnessauthority record
General reference
Further particulars
Held on the record
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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