"The building is the architect, the picture is the artist, the symphony is the composer, the poem the poet." —Max WeberAs his quotation suggests, Max Weber reveals his artistic achievement in this cubist pastel, Foundry in Baltimore.
Happy Birthday to Max Weber
"The building is the architect, the picture is the artist, the symphony is the composer, the poem the poet."
—Max WeberAs his quotation suggests, Max Weber reveals his artistic achievement in this cubist pastel, Foundry in Baltimore.
At age ten Weber immigrated with his parents to Brooklyn. He studied at Pratt Institute and with Arthur Wesley Dow and subsequently taught in public schools in Virginia and Minnesota. In 1905 he left for Paris, where he met Matisse, Picasso, and other vanguard painters of the day and organized an art class taught by Matisse. On his return to New York in 1909, Weber emerged as a prominent figure in avant-garde circles.
To find out more about Weber's "Bringing Cubism to America," check out the fall 2000 article from our online journal, American Art.
Pictured top: Max Weber, 1881 Rusia–1961 USA, Foundry in Baltimore, 1915, pastel on paper, 24 3/8 x 18 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase.
Source: Virginia M. Mecklenburg. Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1987).
Pictured bottom: Photograph of Max Weber, 1881 Russia–1961 USA. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection.