Abstract Forms

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Artist Max Weber (American, born Russia, 1881–1961)American, 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

Not on view

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Department

Prints and Drawings

Object Type

DRAWINGS, PASTELS & WATERCOLORS

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.

Published References Greene, Alison de Lima, with Lyle Williams, Jerika C. Jordan, and Althea Ruoppo. "American Modern: Works from the Collection of Alice C. Simkins" (Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2015), p. 22-23, ill. p. 23 and 49. Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

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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