Bringing Cubism to America: Max Weber and Pablo Picasso Author(s): Percy North Source: American Art, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 58-77 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3109363 Accessed: 11-04-2019 00:00 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Smithsonian American Art Museum, The University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Art This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:00:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I Pa- Il*t:- "1 This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:00:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Bringing Cubism to America Max Weber and Pablo Picasso Percy North Shortly after its inception in Paris, cub- Avenue, called "291," and the first to ism first appeared in the United States in have his new experimental work pub- 1909 with Max Weber's fledgling mod- lished in the American press that same ernist work, a result of the artist's brief year. Influenced by the innovative, formal friendship the year before with Pablo strategies of Picasso, Matisse, and Picasso. Weber met Picasso at one of the Cezanne, Weber at first applied these celebrated soirees that collector Leo Stein innovations to traditional French cubist and his sister, Gertrude, hosted in Paris. themes of nudes, still lifes, and land- Weber visited the young Spaniard's scapes. Later, he extended his range of studio and was influenced by the work subjects to include vaudeville and New he saw there. Despite limited financial York and helped redefine the stylistic and resources, he bought a small Cezanne- thematic boundaries of American art. His inspired still life by Picasso and brought urban paintings Chinese Restaurant (1915; it with him to New York. While Picasso's fig. 1), Rush Hour, New York (1915; fig. legendary instigation and exploration of 2), Grand Central Terminal, and New cubism with his French co-creator York Department Store are considered Georges Braque has been celebrated and masterpieces of American cubism. extensively documented, much less atten- Although Weber's influence was less tion has been devoted to Weber's impres- global than Picasso's, both men changed sive early cubist experimentation and the the course of twentieth-century art significance of his interaction with through their cubist explorations. This Picasso. article examines the nature of their On his return to New York in January friendship, its influence on Weber's early of 1909, after spending over three years cubist paintings, and the introduction of in Paris, the twenty-eight-year-old Weber cubism to Americans.1 embarked on a decade of creativity that established him as America's greatest cub- ist painter and proved to be the most sig- Paris Intersections nificant years of his career. He was the first artist to exhibit protocubist paintings A naturalized American citizen, Max in the United States in the 1910 Younger Weber (1881-1961) had been born in Max Weber, Vaudeville (detail), American Painters exhibition at Alfred 1909. Oil, 51 x 36 cm (20 x 14 in.). Bialystok, Russia, just six months before The Farber Collection, New York Stieglitz's legendary gallery at 291 Fifth Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain. 59 American Art This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:00:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Weber arrived in Paris on September 25, level for four years, Weber considered 1905, at the age of twenty-four, just in himself a student. He registered for time to witness the debut of fauvism at classes at the Academie Julian on October the third annual Salon d'Automne that 9, 1905. The small art school on the left opened on October 18. He settled in bank of the Seine had been a haven for Montparnasse, where he remained until American impressionist painters during he left for America in late 1908. Picasso the 1890s. The Academie Julian contin- had arrived in Paris from Barcelona in ued to attract numerous foreign students, 1900 for the first of several visits. In 1904 who were ineligible to study at the presti- gious Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Leo Stein, with whom Weber would share a passion- ate interest in Cezanne, had entered the "Lengthy ... discussions on the Academie Julian in 1903. Weber's profes- most recent developments and sor, Jean-Paul Laurens, a master of narra- tive painting, whose most impressive trends in art took place, with Leo works could be seen in the Parisian as moderator andpontiff Here Pantheon, insisted on detailed drawing one feltfree to throw artistic as the underpinning of all painting. Since Weber had studied in the United States atom bombs and many cerebral with the more progressive Arthur Wesley explosions did take place. " Dow at Pratt, he was antagonistic to what he perceived to be the outmoded refine- -Max Weber ment of academic discipline. He aban- doned his studies at the Academie Julian in February 1906 to draw without cri- tique at the academies of Colarossi and he established a permanent base on a La Grande Chaumiere in Montparnasse.3 quiet corner of the butte of Montmartre, When Weber was not drawing or where he resided until 1909 at a studio painting, he visited the city's many muse- referred to as the Bateau-Lavoir, because ums so that he became well versed in the the shape of the building resembled a entire history and range of world art. He laundry barge.2 was especially attracted to Asian art Although Weber and Picasso were (which Dow had shown him) and fre- both struggling young artists, their situa- quented the Musee Guimet. Weber dis- tions in Paris in 1905 were markedly dis- covered African and Pre-Columbian art at similar. Picasso had been a child prodigy, the Musee d'Ethnographie du Trocadero, whose family had fostered his genius. Al- now the Musee de l'Homme, and at- though he was living in poverty in his tended exhibitions at galleries of ancient early Paris years, Picasso was already as well as contemporary art. reaching a mature phase in his career Weber was eager to improve his skills and had produced an impressive body and searched for progressive instruction. of work. Weber, on the other hand, had In January 1908, he was among a group come from an Orthodox Jewish family of students who encouraged Matisse, the that did not encourage his artistic talents. star of the fauve salon he had seen, to Even though he had earned a teaching critique their paintings. Weber wrote to degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn his friend the American painter Abraham and had taught drawing and manual Walkowitz about his helping to organize training at the high school and college the class along with Leo Stein and his 60 Fall 2000 This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:00:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms sister-in-law, Sarah Stein. Although the referred to Weber in a letter to Picasso school started in the Couvent des Oiseaux describing events associated with an exhi- on the rue de Sevres, Matisse was forced bition of American art at the Musee du to move to the Couvent du Sacre Coeur Luxembourg. While there is no evidence on the Boulevard des Invalides during the that Weber ever purchased a painting by spring. The grand eighteenth-century Seurat, he acquired small works by hotelparticulier, which had been a con- Matisse and Picasso, and she may easily vent during the nineteenth century, had have forgotten the specifics of the inci- expansive rooms suitable for studios with dent after so many years.6 large windows that faced a beautiful gar- Weber was closer to Leo Stein than to den. The French government allowed his sister, Gertrude (fig. 3). The siblings artists to use spaces in abandoned con- had lived together at 27 rue de Fleurus vents without leases, so that they could since 1903. Much later Weber remem- be put out without warning when a bered the celebrated soirees: suitable use was determined for the buildings.4 Leo and Gertrude Stein graciously received In The Autobiography ofAlice B. Toklas art students, students ofphilosophy and lan- (1933), Gertrude Stein's memoir that guages at the Sorbonne; writers, youngpo- documents her catalytic association with ets, musicians, and scientists who came to the movers and shakers of the art world study the paintings of Cezanne and those of during the early twentieth century, she the other rising artists. For hours they stood relates an anecdote about the Matisse class: around a large table in the center of the room, examiningportfolios full of drawings There were quite a number ofamericans. by Matisse, Picasso, and others, andfolios One of these americans under a plea ofpov- stocked with superb Japaneseprints. This erty was receiving his tuition for nothing salon was a sort of intellectual clearing and then wasfound to have purchasedfor house of ideas and matters of art, for the himselfa tiny Matisse and a tiny Picasso young and aspiring artists from all over the and a tiny Seurat.