Max Weber (April 18, 1881 – October 4, 1961) was a

Jewish-American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and one of the first American

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

painters who, in later life, turned to more figurative

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

themes in his art. He is best known today for ''Chinese Restaurant'' (1915), in the collection of the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, "the finest canvas of his Cubist phase," in the words of art historian Avis Berman.

Biography

Early years

Born in the Polish city of

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...

, then part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, Weber emigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn with his Orthodox Jewish parents at the age of ten. He studied art at the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

under

Arthur Wesley Dow Arthur Wesley Dow (1857 – December 13, 1922) was an American painter, printmaker, photographer and an arts educator. Early life Arthur Wesley Dow was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1857. Dow received his first art training in 1880 from An ...

. Dow was a fortunate early influence on Weber as he was an "enlightened and vital teacher" in a time of conservative art instruction, a man who was interested in new approaches to creating art. Dow had met

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

in Pont-Aven, was a devoted student of Japanese art, and defended the advanced modernist painting and sculpture he saw at the

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...

in New York in 1913. In 1905, after teaching in Virginia and Minnesota, Weber had saved enough money to travel to Europe, where he studied at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

in Paris and acquainted himself with the work of such

modernists Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

Henri Rousseau Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, and other members of the

School of Paris The School of Paris (french: École de Paris) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance ...

. His friends among fellow Americans included some equally adventurous young painters, such as

Abraham Walkowitz Abraham Walkowitz (March 28, 1878, Tyumen, Russia - January 27, 1965, New York City, EUA) was a Russian-American painter grouped in with early American Modernists working in the Modernist style. While never attaining the same level of fame as h ...

, H. Lyman Sayen, and

Patrick Henry Bruce Artist Patrick Henry Bruce (3rd from left) & friends/associates in front of the entrance to a 300px Patrick Henry Bruce (March 25, 1881 – November 12, 1936) was an American cubist painter. Biography A descendant of Patrick Henry, Bruce wa ...

. Avant-garde France in the years immediately before World War I was fertile and welcoming territory for Weber, then in his early twenties. He arrived in Paris in time to see a major Cézanne exhibition, meet the poet

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

, frequent

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

's salon, and enroll in classes in Matisse's private "Academie." Rousseau gave him some of his works; others, Weber purchased. He was responsible for Rousseau's first exhibition in the United States.

America

In 1909 he returned to New York and helped to introduce

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

to America. He is now considered one of the most significant early American Cubists, but the reception his work received in New York at the time was profoundly discouraging. Critical response to his paintings in a 1911 show at the 291 gallery, run by Alfred Stieglitz, was an occasion for "one of the most merciless critical whippings that any artist has received in America." The reviews were "of an almost hysterical violence." He was attacked for his "brutal, vulgar, and unnecessary art license." Even a critic who usually tried to be sympathetic to new art,

James Gibbons Huneker James Gibbons Huneker (January 31, 1857 – February 9, 1921) was an American art, book, music, and theater critic. A colorful individual and an ambitious writer, he was "an American with a great mission," in the words of his friend, the critic Be ...

, protested that the artist's clever technique had left viewers with no real picture and made use of the adage, "The operation was successful, but the patient died." As art historian

Sam Hunter Sam Hunter may refer to: People *Sam Hunter (art historian) (1923–2014), American historian of modern art * Sam Hunter (cartoonist) (1858–1939), Canadian cartoonist * Samuel Hunter (gymnast) (born 1988), British male artistic gymnast * Samuel D ...

wrote, "Weber's wistful, tentative Cubism provided the philistine press with their first solid target prior to the Armory Show." Max Weber - The Cellist - Google Art Project

Max Weber - The Cellist - Google Art Project

Weber was sustained by the respect of some eminent peers, such as photographers Alvin Langdon Coburn and

Clarence White Clarence White (born Clarence Joseph LeBlanc; June 7, 1944 – July 15, 1973) was an American bluegrass and country guitarist and singer. He is best known as a member of the bluegrass ensemble the Kentucky Colonels and the rock band the Byrd ...

, and museum director

John Cotton Dana John Cotton Dana (born August 19, 1856, in Woodstock, Vermont – died July 21, 1929, in Newark, New Jersey) was an American library and museum director who sought to make these cultural institutions relevant to the daily lives of citizens. As ...

, who saw to it that Weber was the subject of a one-man exhibition at the

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

in 1913, the first modernist exhibition in an American museum. For a few years, Weber enjoyed a productive if rocky relationship with Stieglitz, and he published two essays in Stieglitz's journal ''

Camera Work ''Camera Work'' was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It presented high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world, with the goal to establish photography as a ...

''. (He also wrote Cubist poems and published a book, ''Essays on Art,'' in 1916.) So poor was Weber in these years that he camped out for some weeks in Stieglitz's gallery. Weber was also closely acquainted with

Wilhelmina Weber Furlong Wilhelmina Weber Furlong (1878–1962) was a German American artist and teacher.The Biography of Wilhelmina Weber Furlong: The Treasured Collection of Golden Heart Farm by Clint B. Weber, Among America's earliest avant-garde elite modernist p ...

and Thomas Furlong, whom he met at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

, where he taught from 1919 to 1921 and 1926 to 1927. Weber died in

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck (village), New York, Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, New York, Great Neck Es ...

in 1961. He was the subject of a major retrospective at the

Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. List of Jewish museums Notable Jewish museums include: *Albania ** Solomon Museum, Berat *Australia ** Jewish Mu ...

in 1982. Weber evidently was a prickly personality even with his allies. He and Stieglitz had a falling-out, and Weber was not represented in the famous

because his friend,

Arthur B. Davies Arthur Bowen Davies (September 26, 1862 – October 24, 1928) was an avant-garde American artist and influential advocate of modern art in the United States c. 1910–1928. Biography Davies was born in Utica, New York, the son of David and Phoeb ...

, one of the show's organizers, had only allotted him space for two paintings. In a fit of pique at Davies, he withdrew entirely from the exhibition. Other artists in the Stieglitz circle kept their distance, especially after Weber told people that there were only three indisputably great modern painters: Cézanne, Rousseau, and himself. "Almost without exception, they found him obnoxious: opinionated, rude, intolerant."

Success

In time, Weber's work found more adherents, including

Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...

, the first director of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

. In 1930, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of his work, the first solo exhibition at that museum of an American artist. He was praised as a "pioneer of modern art in America" in a 1945 ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' magazine article. In 1948, '' Look'' magazine reported on a survey among art experts to determine the greatest living American artists; Weber was rated second, behind only John Marin. He was the subject of a major traveling retrospective in 1949. He became more popular in the 1940s and 1950s for his figurative work, often

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

renderings of Jewish families, rabbis, and Talmudic scholars, than for the early modernist work he had abandoned circa 1920 and on which his current reputation is founded. Not everyone believed that Weber fulfilled his early potential as he became a more representational and expressionist painter post-World War I. Critic Hilton Kramer wrote of him that, in light of the remarkable beginning of his career, "Weber proved instead to be one of the great disappointments of twentieth-century American art." Others however, because of his bold "Cubist decade," hold him in the same high regard as other native modernists like John Marin,

Arthur Dove Arthur Garfield Dove (August 2, 1880 – November 23, 1946) was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter.. Dove used a wide range of media, sometimes in unconventional combinati ...

Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was born ...

, and

Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Ame ...

Poetry

While lecturing at the Clarence H. White School for Photography, Weber wrote his ''Cubist Poems'' that were to be published in 1914. In 1926, the artist released another collection entitled "Primitives: Poems and Woodcuts." Weber designed the modernist-style binding for the book, as well as providing eleven

woodcuts Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

for the illustrations. First published by Spiral Press in a run of 350 copies, original editions are now rare. :Cubes, cubes, cubes, cubes, :High, low and high, and higher, higher, :Far, far out, out, far.. :Billions of things upon things :This for the eye, the eye of being, :At the edge of the Hudson, :Flowing timeless, endless, :On, on, on, on.... :Excerpt from ''The Eye Moment'', a Weber poem published in 1914Princeton education website
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Gallery

File:Brooklyn Museum - Portrait of Abraham Walkowitz - Max Weber - overall.jpg, ''Portrait of Abraham Walkowitz'', c. 1907 File:Brooklyn Museum - Composition with Four Figures - Max Weber.jpg, ''Composition with Four Figures'', 1910 File:Brooklyn Museum - Standing Figure - Max Weber.jpg, ''Standing Figure'', 1911 File:Brooklyn Museum - Study for Russian Ballet - Max Weber - overall.jpg, ''Study for Russian Ballet'', 1914 File:MaxWeberPainting1.jpg, ''Avoirdupois'', 1915 File:Brooklyn Museum - Russian Ballet - Max Weber - overall.jpg, ''Russian Ballet'', 1916 File:WLA jewishmuseum Sabbath by Max Weber 2.jpg, ''Sabbath'', 1919 File:Max Weber - The Visit - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Visit'', 1919,

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

Collections

Collections containing Weber's work include: *

Addison Gallery of American Art The Addison Gallery of American Art is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art, organized as a department of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. History Directors of the gallery include Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr. (1940– ...

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

Berkshire Museum __NOTOC__ The Berkshire Museum is a museum of art, natural history, and ancient civilization that is located in Pittsfield in Berkshire County, Massachusetts ( United States). History The Berkshire Museum, founded by local paper magnate Zenas C ...

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent col ...

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission. Overview ...

Detroit Institute of Art The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project complete ...

Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is an art museum on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, Oklahoma. Overview The University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art holds over 20,000 objects in its permanent collection. The museum c ...

Harvard Art Museums The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...

Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...

* Jewish Museum (New York) *

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art The Block Museum of Art is a free public art museum located on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The Block Museum was established in 1980 when Chicago art collectors Mary (daughter of Albert Lasker) and Leigh B. Block (f ...

* Memorial Art Gallery *

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is an art museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The Brooks Museum, which was founded in 1916, is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Tennessee. The museum is a privately funded nonprofit institution located in ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

New Britain Museum of American Art The New Britain Museum of American Art is an art museum in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art. A total of 72,000 visits were made to the museum in the year ending June 30, 200 ...

New Jersey State Museum The New Jersey State Museum is located at 195-205 West State Street in Trenton, New Jersey. It serves a broad region between New York City and Philadelphia. The museum's collections include natural history specimens, archaeological and ethnograph ...

Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...

Reynolda House Museum of American Art The Reynolda House Museum of American Art displays a premiere collection of American art ranging from the colonial period to the present. Built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband R. J. Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds To ...

Sheldon Museum of Art The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Its collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century art. History Sheldon Art Association In 1888, The Sheldon Art Assoc ...

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

Terra Foundation for American Art The Terra Foundation for American Art is a privately operated nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of American art exhibitions, projects, academic research, and publications worldwide. Its goal is to promote a greater understanding and a ...

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...

* University of Reading Art Collection *

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...

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Published works

* Weber, Max (1914). ''Cubist Poems'' (2012, HardPress; ) * *

References

Sources

* Brown, Milton. ''American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955. * Davidson, Abraham A. ''Early American Modernist Painting, 1910-1935''. New York: DaCapo, 1994. * Harnsberger, R.S. ''Four Artists of the Stieglitz Circle: A Sourcebook on Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Max Weber'' rt Reference Collection, no. 26 Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. * Hunter, Sam. ''Modern American Painting and Sculpture''. New York: Dell, 1959. * North, Percy. ''Max Weber: The Cubist Decade, 1910-1920''. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1991. * North, Percy. ''Max Weber: Max Weber's Women''. New York: Forum Gallery, 1996. * Rubenstein, D.R. ''Max Weber: A Catalogue Raisonné of his Graphic Work''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. * Werner, Abram. ''Max Weber''. New York: Abrams, 1975. * Percy North, Anna Gruetzner Robins, Nancy Ireson, Pamela Roberts and Lionel Kelly. ''Max Weber: An American Cubist in Paris and London, 1905-15''. Lund Humphries, 2014.

External links

Max Weber biography
Hollis Taggart Galleries
Max Weber artwork examples
AskART
Max Weber at The Jewish Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weber, Max 1881 births 1961 deaths Cubist artists American people of Polish-Jewish descent 20th-century Polish painters 20th-century American male artists 20th-century American painters American male painters Jewish painters Modern painters Art Students League of New York faculty Pratt Institute alumni Académie Julian alumni Jewish American artists People from Białystok 20th-century American printmakers Polish male painters Artists from Białystok