Russian-American Painter, Printmaker, and Sculptor
Summary of Max Weber
Born in Russia, Weber emigrated with his family to New York as a child. His earliest artist training was with Arthur Wesley Dow, who encouraged his students to reject traditional narrative painting in favor of new explorations of expression and form. Weber was one of the first American artists to incorporate "primitive" influences into his work. He also studied in Paris at the Academie Julian, where he learned from contemporary Fauve and Cubist painters (even took classes with Henri Matisse ) and became friends with Henri Rousseau . Weber would be responsible for Rousseau's first exhibition in America and he also helped to introduce Cubism to an American audience after his return to New York in 1909. Friends with many experimental artists in Paris, Weber was responsible for sending the first of Picasso's paintings to America for exhibition. Despite his early success in France, Weber often felt that his work was unappreciated and his prickly response alienated him from many colleagues and potential supporters. Although he was once a central member of the Stieglitz circle, even living at Stieglitz's 291 Gallery when he was very poor, the men had a falling-out in the early 1910s; he was excluded from the Armory Show when he protested the small number of works he was invited to submit. In his later years, Weber turned to more representational, often expressionistic renderings of Jewish life and culture.
Accomplishments
- In Paris, Weber was a founding member of the New Society of American Artists and formed part of a transatlantic network of painters. He greatly admired the work of Cézanne , whose paintings he discovered at the salons hosted by Gertrude and Leo Stein. Returning to America, he was linked to the Stieglitz circle and taught at the Clarence H. White School of Photography and the Art Students League, where he popularized theories of abstraction and expressionism (he is cited as having importantly influenced Mark Rothko ).
- When first exhibited in New York, Weber's paintings were a shocking introduction of European avant-garde ideas. His celebration of primitivism , both in the exploration of non-Western art and the naive work of Henri Rousseau, broke with traditional sources for artistic inspiration. As one of the first American painters to embrace Cubism, exhibitions of Weber's work predated the 1913 Armory Show and introduced the fractured, non-perspectival style to New York, to much early disdain. While unpopular with critics, these abstractions cemented his reputation among the avant-garde as one of the most daring and experimental painters in New York.
- The expressive quality of Weber's abstractions was underscored by the publication of his 1916 book, Essays on Art . This text circulated modernist ideas, arguing for the spiritual significance of art that reproduced experiences rather than just reproducing images.
- Despite the widespread skepticism his work provoked, Weber did enjoy support from important museums and curators. His 1913 exhibition at the Newark Museum was the first solo show of modern art in an American museum and his 1930 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art was that institution's first solo show of an American artist.
Important Art by Max Weber
Weber's still life incorporates elements of Cubism through the flattened pictorial space and multiple points of view. This is particularly evident in the draped background, which is depicted as intermingling with objects in the foreground, blending objects and space. Weber adopts the nearly monochromatic palette of early Cubism, as well, which furthers adds to the confusion of spatial depth. Traditional in its subject, this arrangement is rendered in bold brushstrokes that create a sense of life and movement while the overall portrayal reveals the influence of Cézanne. Although other American artists would come to incorporate these elements in their abstract paintings, Weber was the first to understand, incorporate, and build upon French Cubism in his work.
Oil with charcoal or chalk on canvas - The Art Institute of Chicago
Chinese Restaurant
At first glance, this composition might seem to be a completely abstract array of colors and shapes, but when analyzed with the title in mind, recognizable components of the titular setting begin to emerge: the wall, the black-and-yellow tiled floor, faces, etc. Harnessing the energy of Cubist abstraction, Weber's painting conveys not only these details of a Chinese restaurant, but conjures the bustling atmosphere and quick pace of urban life. Weber himself explained this painting in sensorial terms, writing: "On entering a Chinese restaurant from the darkness of the night outside, a maze and blaze of light seemed to split into fragments the interior and its contents, the human and inanimate. For the time being the static became transient and fugitive - oblique planes and contours took vertical and horizontal positions, and the horizontal and vertical became oblique, the light so piercing and so luminous, the colors so lucid and the life and movement so enchanting!" In the early-20 th century, Chinese restaurants were becoming a popular fixture in lower Manhattan. Not only were these neighborhoods the epicenter of immigrant communities, but also frequented by artists who appreciated an inexpensive meal. The Chinese restaurant became part of bohemian social experiences and was doubtlessly part of Weber's world. This painting shows a solid understanding of Cubist principles in the fragmentation of forms, suggestions of objects through components of shape and color, and the fracturing of planes and space into facets. Weber also incorporates collage elements, blurring the lines of reality and illusion, similar to the collages of Picasso and Braque during the early 1910s.
Oil, charcoal, and collages paper on linen - Whitney Museum of American Art
Adoration of the Moon
As a child in the Jewish town of Bialystock, Weber's early memories were centered in old world religious iconography and tradition. His father, Morris Weber, left the family for America when Max was five years old. The artist later recalled the personal significance of the monthly celebrations of the new moon: as the men would gather to pray, he would think of his father who could see the same crescent from his home in New York. The family would be reunited in New York when Max was ten. In his later years, Weber turned away from abstraction in favor of figurative paintings that often drew inspiration from his Jewish heritage and childhood memories. Here, the four men gathered have an otherworldly quality, their elongated bodies recalling the Byzantine decorations common in Weber's hometown.
Oil on canvas - Whitney Museum of American Art
Similar Art
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)
Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) (1907)
Four Darks in Red (1958)
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Essays on Art
NY: Gerald Peters Gallery, 2000. Softcover. Beige wraps. 77 pp. 2 bw plates. VG. Item #19645 Reprint from original 1916 edition.
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Max Weber : Art and Life Are Not Apart
“Culture will come only when every man will know how to address himself to the inanimate simple things of life. A pot, a cup, a piece of calico, a chair, a mantle, a frame, the binding of a book, the trimming of a dress…these we live with. Culture will come when people touch things with love and see them with a penetrating eye”
(Max Weber, Essays on Art , New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1916, 32. Quoted in Percy North, Max Weber: American Modern , New York: The Jewish Museum, 1982, 27.)
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Paperback - November 9, 2015. "Essays on Art" by Max Weber is a captivating collection of writings that offers profound insights into the world of art and aesthetics. Drawing from his expertise as a prominent art critic and cultural historian, Weber explores diverse themes, including the significance of artistic expression, the evolution of ...
Essays on art by Weber, Max, 1881-1961. Publication date 1916 Topics Art Publisher [S.l. : s.n.] (New York : Collection cdl; americana Contributor University of California Libraries Language English.
Essays on Art by Max Weber. Publication date 1916 Publisher Printed by W.E. Rudge Collection americana Book from the collections of Harvard University Language English. Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb. Addeddate
When first exhibited in New York, Weber's paintings were a shocking introduction of European avant-garde ideas. His celebration of primitivism, both in the exploration of non-Western art and the naive work of Henri Rousseau, broke with traditional sources for artistic inspiration. As one of the first American painters to embrace Cubism ...
essay on art Bookreader Item Preview ... essay on art by max weber. Publication date 1916 Collection internetarchivebooks Contributor Internet Archive Language English. Addeddate 2022-06-28 00:00:46 Autocrop_version ..14_books-20220331-.2 Bookplateleaf 0002
Essays on Art. Max Weber. William Edwin Rudge, 1916 - Art - 77 pages. 0 Reviews. Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified .
Essays On Art. Max Weber. Creative Media Partners, LLC, Aug 13, 2015 - 86 pages. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will ...
Essays on Art. Max Weber. Creative Media Partners, LLC, Aug 8, 2015 - 88 pages. 0 Reviews. Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified ...
Max Weber. born Bialystok, Russia (now Bialystok, Poland) 1881-died Great Neck, NY 1961 ... During the second decade of the century Weber supported himself primarily by lecturing, and his 1916 Essays on Art were based on his teachings at the White School of Photography. Although Weber had a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1930 ...
Max Weber in 1914. Max Weber (April 18, 1881 - October 4, 1961) was a Jewish-American painter and one of the first American Cubist painters who, in later life, turned to more figurative Jewish themes in his art. He is best known today for Chinese Restaurant (1915), in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, "the finest canvas of his Cubist phase," in the words of art historian ...
Max Weber was one of the few American artists of his generation — which was pioneering in its interest in the new art — to set out his artistic ideas in writing. His essays can be read in Stieglitz's Camera Work (1910) and under the title Essays on Art (1916).
Essays on Art. Weber, Max. NY: Gerald Peters Gallery, 2000. Softcover. Beige wraps. 77 pp. 2 bw plates. VG. ... See all items in American Artists. See all items by Max Weber. Mullen Books; 121-123 Walnut Street Columbia, PA 17512 Phone 717-618-0481; Find on Facebook Follow on Pinterest. Search Our Inventory; Browse Categories; Catalogs; New ...
A BSTRACT Max Weber's contribution to cultural sociology has received insufficient attention, due to the unfinished character of his work and its reception. This paper investigates aspects of his contribution in relation to the field of art, broadly conceived, and in terms of the uses of his ideas by historians of art and design, such as T. J. Clark. Weber's social theory considers art ...
Essays On Art. Max Weber. ... Maximilian Carl Emil Weber was a German lawyer, politician, historian, sociologist and political economist, who profoundly influenced social theory and the remit of sociology itself. His major works dealt with the rationalization, bureaucratization and 'disenchantment' associated with the rise of capitalism. ...
Trieste Publishing has a massive catalogue of classic book titles. Our aim is to provide readers with the highest quality reproductions of fiction and non-fiction literature that has stood the test of time. The many thousands of books in our collection have been sourced from libraries and private collections around the world.The titles that Trieste Publishing has chosen to be part of the ...
Max Weber: Art and Life Are Not Apart presents 26 paintings and works on paper by Max Weber directly from the Max Weber Foundation spanning the full scope of the artist's career-long still life practice from 1907 to 1955. ... (Max Weber, Essays on Art, New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1916, 32. Quoted in Percy North, Max Weber: American Modern ...
Buy Essays on Art by Max Weber online at Alibris. We have new and used copies available, in 11 editions - starting at $8.19. Shop now.
Essays On Art. Max Weber. Creative Media Partners, LLC, Apr 11, 2019 - 90 pages. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will ...
Essays On Art [Weber, Max] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Essays On Art