Max Weber
Abstract Forms

Abstract Forms

© Estate of Max Weber

Abstract Forms
Abstract Forms
ArtistAmerican, born Russia, 1881–1961
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Abstract Forms
Date1917
MediumPastel on beige wove paper
DimensionsSheet: 14 1/2 x 10 in. (36.8 x 25.4 cm)
Frame: 22 5/8 × 18 3/4 × 5/8 in. (57.5 × 47.6 × 1.6 cm)
Credit LineThe Alice C. Simkins Collection, gift of Alice C. Simkins and museum purchase funded by Aggie Foster
Object number2016.311
Non exposé

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DescriptionRussian-born émigré Max Weber traveled to Paris in 1905, becoming one of the first American artists to engage directly with European Modernism. "Abstract Forms" plays with the language of Analytic Cubism as several identifiable forms emerge from the overall abstract scaffold, including a table, a jug or bottle, and a carafe with a glass stopper. In 1923 he was dubbed “the best of the American moderns” by the critic Henry McBride, who observed:  “Mr. Weber, more than any of the native artists who have made themselves visible … faces the problems of the art expression of this time with courage equal to that that masters have ever employed.”
ProvenanceThe artist; Edith Halpert Collection, New York; [Bernard Danenberg, New York]; The Alice C. Simkins Collection, San Antonio, March 6, 1975; to MFAH, 2016.
Exhibition History"Max Weber: The Cubist Decade 1910-1920," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 8–May 3, 1992.

"American Modern: Works from the Collection of Alice C. Simkins," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 15–July 19, 2015.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Recto: Signed and dated in graphite, bottom left corner: Max Weber 1917 [cursive]
Verso: [inaccessible]
Recto: Signed and dated in graphite, bottom left corner: Max Weber 1917 [cursive]
Verso: [inaccessible]
Recto: [none]
Verso: [inaccessible]
Catalogue raisonnéRubinstein, Daryl R. "Max Weber: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Graphic Work" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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