Born in Paris, one of the world's most prolific photographers, Andreas Bernhard Lyonel Feininger (1906-1999) was an American photographer and a writer on photographic technique. He was noted for his dynamic black-and-white scenes of Manhattan and for studies of the structures of natural objects.
Feininger was a pioneer both visually and technically. He was educated in German public schools and at the Weimar Bauhaus. His interest in photography developed while he was studying architecture, and he worked as both architect and photographer in Germany for four years, until political circumstances made it impossible. Feininger moved to Paris, where he worked in Le Corbusier's studio, and then to Stockholm. There he established his own photographic firm specializing in architectural and industrial photography.
With the outbreak of war in 1939, Feininger moved to New York, where he was a freelance photographer for the Black Star Agency and then for the U.S. Office of War Information. After working on a retainer basis, he was a staff photographer at LIFE from 1943 to 1962, and there established his reputation.
Feininger subsequently concentrated on his personal work, exhibiting and publishing extensively. he was renowned as a teacher via his publications that combine practical experience with clarity of presentation.
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| 42nd Street, New York, circa 1940 |
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| Apollo Theatre, NYC, 1940 |
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| Central Park, NYC, 1940 |
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| Futon Street, New York, 1940 |
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| Lower Manhattan seen from Brooklyn, circa 1940 |
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| New York City, 1940 |
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| Ninth Avenue el, NYC, circa 1940 |
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| The Bowery under the shadows of the Third Avenue el, circa 1940 |
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| The cast-iron facade of the Potter Building, Nassau Street, Manhattan, circa 1940 |
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| German shop on East 86th Street, 1941 |
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| Lower Manhattan, 1941 |
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| Cities Service Building on Pine Street, New York, 1942 |
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| Midtown Manhattan seen from New Jersey 1942 |
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| Statue of Liberty, 1942 |
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| Times Square, 1942 |
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| New York City, 1943 |
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| Crossing of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, at 23rd Street, in center the Flatiron Building, April 1944 |
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| ITT Building and 3rd Avenue, May 1944 |
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| New Yorkers crowd Broadway below a large billboard depicting actress Marlene Dietrich, October 1944 |
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| Times Square at night, 1946 |
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| The Brooklyn Bridge arches toward Lower Manhattan, 1948 |
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| Brooklyn Army Base, 1949 |
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| Coney Island, July 4, New York, 1949 |