Max Weber, (born April 18, 1881, Białystok, Russian
Empire [now in Poland] — died October 4, 1961, Great Neck, New York,
U.S.), Russian-born American painter, printmaker, and sculptor who,
through his early abstract works, helped to introduce such avant-garde
European art movements as Fauvism and Cubism to the United States.
Weber immigrated to New York City with his parents
in 1891 and studied from 1898 to 1900 at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn
with the renowned teacher Arthur Wesley Dow. From 1905 to 1908 he lived
in Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian and with Henri
Matisse. While in Paris, Weber became a regular at the salon of Leo and
Gertrude Stein and formed friendships with the artists Henri Rousseau
and Pablo Picasso. Upon returning to New York in 1909, he became part
of the city's avant-garde circle and was one of the exhibitors at
Alfred Stieglitz's “291” gallery. Between 1909 and 1917 he
painted many of his best-known pictures, including the Fauvist-inspired
The Geranium (1911) and Chinese Restaurant (1915), a work created in the
Synthetic Cubist manner. During this period he favored subjects such as
skyscrapers and city interiors. In his figure studies he expressed the
dynamism of the American city by fragmenting objects in motion.
Weber's work became increasingly representational
after 1917, but he continued to be fascinated with the exploration of
color and form. During the last 20 years of his career many of his
paintings were based on Jewish subject matter, especially Hasidic themes.
Like many immigrant artists during the 1930s, Weber became active in
socialist causes and, in 1937, served as national chairman of the
American Artists' Congress, an antifascist artists' group. Weber
taught at the Art Students League in New York, teaching a painting class
that the young Mark Rothko attended. Weber's publications include
Essays on Art (1916) and Primitives (1926).