Art Art &Bill Peckmann &Comic Art 11 Jan 2011 08:34 am
Feininger 1 – The Kin-Der-Kids
- Lyonel Feininger was most famously known for his artwork done in Germany as part of the German Expressionist movement. Interestingly enough, he didn’t start his serious art until the age of 36. Born in the United States in 1871, he created two early comic strips which were commissioned by the Chicago Tribune in 1906. They were trying to compete with the best strips of the day and chose to look to their own German-American community. The Kin-der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie’s World. Both strips stand up with the best of Winsor McCay’s comic strips and, in some ways, is even more graphically daring than McCay.
Bill Peckmann has loaned me an excellent book collecting the strips of Feininger. In this first post, I’ve selected some samples of The Kin-der-Kids strip.
1The paper started the strip off with a big bang.
2
A detailed introduction to all the characters.
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To give an idea of Feininger’s art after the comic strips, I’ve culled these few images of his paintings from various sites.
1Oil on canvas
2
Oil on canvas
3
Watercolor
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Oil on canvas
on 11 Jan 2011 at 3:16 pm 1.Eric Noble said …
Absolutely wonderful!!! Both his comics and fine artwork are beautiful!! A true master draftsman. I would love to study his work!
on 11 Jan 2011 at 7:59 pm 2.Bill said …
If you look at the years in which these were done, makes them only that much more amazing. What a sense of design, they’re timeless.
on 12 Jan 2011 at 3:39 am 3.eddie Fitzgerald said …
Fenninger was one of the very best comic strip artists ever. His cartoons were a whole lot better than his oil paintings, and yet he left cartooning to paint. I wonder why? Maybe he thought there was more prestige in fine art. Maybe he had bad experiences with the newspaper editors he worked with. I wish I knew.
on 12 Jan 2011 at 6:15 am 4.slowtiger said …
We had to paint in Feininger’s style in art education at school – making a field trip to town and break down church or town hall into cubistic pieces. I was much more impressed with the comics which I found in the local library. Isn’t “Wee Willy Winky” very much like McCay’s “Adventures of a Rarebit Friend”?
on 13 Jan 2011 at 10:53 am 5.hans bacher said …
this is the first time I see so many of these comic pages, they are fantastic! It is very hard to find the right books about his work, i tried. that’s why I am so happy about your post. these characters and the whole style would look great in animation…
on 11 Feb 2011 at 4:00 pm 6.Lester Boutillier said …
I wonder if Fantagraphics or somebody will publish the collected strips extant of “The Kinder-Kids,” as has been done with “little Nemo.” Let’s hope so!