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Max Weber

American, born Białystok, Russia (now Poland), 1881-1961

Figure Study, 1911

oil on canvas

support: 24 x 40 1/2 inches (60.96 x 102.87 cm); framed: 30 5/16 x 46 1/2 x 2 5/16 inches (76.99 x 118.11 x 5.87 cm)

Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Charles W. Goodyear Fund, 1959

1959:2

Collection Highlight

More Details

Inscriptions

signature, dated / lower right / Max Weber 1911

Provenance

[provenance unknown, 1911-1958];
Downtown Gallery, New York, 1958;
sold to the Albright Art Gallery, January 27, 1959

Class

Paintings

Work Type

Oil painting

Information may change due to ongoing research.Glossary of Terms

Immediately following his return to the United States from Europe in January 1909, Max Weber concentrated on his own version of Cubist-inspired nudes. The works he created during this time display the full impact of what he had absorbed in Paris. Weber admired African sculpture and was inspired by its bold distortions, dark palette, and non-Western approach to form. Yet, Weber did not break up his compositions to the same degree as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque during their Cubist period, which perhaps suggests the influence of another artist—Henri Matisse. In fact, Weber owned a ceramic tile painted by the artist with a figure whose contours and shape are similar to those of the subject in this painting.

Label from Picasso: The Artist and His Models, November 5, 2016–February 19, 2017