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In The Dancers, Weber used his linear expressionist style to depict figures that reference the artist’s interests in Ancient and Non-Western art traditions, an interest perhaps influenced by Pablo Picasso. [1] The compositional space is shallow, with the nude figures [2] standing next to a tent-like structure in the foreground. There is no middle ground, and the background is suggested only by a line establishing the ground plane. The faces of the figures are seen in full profile, but their bodies are in three-quarters profile. The figure to the left of the composition seems to be male. His long, wavy brown hair is topped with a red cap, perhaps a scarf, and his upraised right arm is clasping what may be a dagger or a spear (if the latter, only the blade and not the shaft is visible). The other figure, presumably female with an even narrower waist and rounded belly, reaches back with her left arm to grasp from what may be a bundle of standards or spears, directly in front of a triangular tent-like form. The artist uses rich earth tones along with blue-grays, with accents of strong green and red. Triangles at various angles to the picture and ground planes suggest pictorial space beyond the picture plane. Glimpses of ultramarine blue are revealed through layers of gray. Vibrant yellow-gold activates the brownish ground plane and the thin vertical forms that the female holds.
Weber’s deft handling of paint is loose and lively, and his visible brushstrokes emphasize the surface of the painting while denying representational illusion. Somewhat paradoxically, the black outline of the figures seems to delineate a pictorial space in which the bodies can move. This attenuated black line has the liveliness of gesture with the odd specificity of blind contour drawing and resembles the automatist drawing favored by Surrealist artists.
The subject of dancers was common in the work of Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, and other modernists. Art historian Percy North says, “Weber continued to show interest in the theme of the dance because it gave him the opportunity of integrating pictorial equivalents for sound, with lively color, vibrant lighting patterns, human exertion and abandon, and space definition through physical movement.” [3]
This painting was a gift from Maynard Weber, who received a favorable impression of the museum during a personal visit and offered his father’s painting to the executive director.
Notes:
[1] North, Percy. Max Weber: American Modern. New York: The Jewish Museum, 1983, p. 20.
“[A] limited edition of Cubist Poems appeared in 1914. Understandably the book was dedicated to (Alvin Langdon) Coburn, who wrote an introduction to the poetry in which he made some interesting comments about his friend’s painting:
El Greco, Cezanne, Henri Rousseau, and Picasso are the painters with whose work he is most in sympathy; but best of all he likes to study the art of primitive peoples, the sculpture of Egypt and Assyria, the great simple things that have come down to us from the past. The inclusion of Picasso in this statement is significant, for, although cubist forms had begun to surface in Weber’s paintings, this is one of the rare instances where there is any acknowledgment on Weber’s behalf of any sympathy with Picasso. Yet, presumably, Weber would not have sanctioned Coburn’s foreword if he were not in agreement with it. Throughout the rest of his career, however, Weber steadfastly disavowed any connection with what he regarded as the fads and “isms” linked to Picasso and the French moderns.”
[2] North, p. 39.
“Throughout his study of the nude, Weber examined a range of human expression from solitary meditation to hedonistic abandon. The unclothed body primarily signified sensual pleasure, freedom, and lack of restraint to him, but it also expressed innocence, vulnerability, and melancholy. (. . .)”
[3] North, p. 42.
ProvenanceEstate of Artist [1]
To 1987
Dorothy F. and Maynard J. Weber, acquired from estate of artist. [2]
From 1987
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC, given by Dorothy F. and Maynard J. Weber on December 23, 1987. [3]
Notes:
[1] Appraisal report filled out by donors, December 21, 1987, copy in object file.
[2] See note 1. Son and daughter-in-law of the artist.
[3] Deed of Gift, object file.
Exhibition HistoryForum Gallery, New York NY.
Label on back frame.
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York NY.
1990-1992
American Originals, Selections From Reynolda House Museum Of American Art
The American Federation of Arts
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami FL (9/22/1990-11/18/1990)
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs CA (12/16/1990-2/10/1991)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (3/6/1991-5/11/1991)
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis TN (6/2/1991-7/28/1991)
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth TX (8/17/1991-10/20/1991)
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago IL (11/17/1991-1/12/1992)
The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK (3/1/1992-4/26/1992)
2007
The Art of Dance
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC (4/3/2007-9/16/2007)
2009
Stieglitz Circle: Beyond O'Keeffe
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC (6/6/2009-11/15/2009)
2021-2022
The O'Keeffe Circle: Artist as Gallerist and Collector
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (9/10/2021-3/3/2021)
Published ReferencesMillhouse, Barbara B. and Robert Workman. American Originals. New York: Abbeville Press Pub., 1990: 118-9.
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg 200, 222, 223
DepartmentAmerican Art
The Dancers
Artist
Max Weber
(1881 - 1961)
Date1948
Mediumoil on canvas
DimensionsFrame: 27 1/4 x 32 1/4 in. (69.2 x 81.9 cm)
Canvas: 20 1/4 x 24 1/4 in. (51.4 x 61.6 cm)
Image: 20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm)
SignedMAX WEBER
Credit LineGift of Dorothy F. and Maynard J. Weber
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number1987.2.4
DescriptionThis striking image of two nude figures, hand in hand, standing in a flat landscape with an overcast sky defies easy interpretation. Max Weber was one of the first early modernists in American art. After graduating from Pratt Institute in 1900, Weber taught art in Virginia and Minnesota before travelling to Paris in 1905, where he met several avant garde artists including Henri Rousseau, Robert Delaunay, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse. He also met the American photographer Edward Steichen, with whom Alfred Stieglitz had started the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, later known as Gallery 291. It was Steichen who told Weber to look up Stieglitz upon his return to New York City in 1909, and for a time Weber was part of Stieglitz’s circle. Over the course of his career, Weber received critical if not popular acclaim for his investigation of different styles of Modernism, from Fauvism and Cubism to Expressionism. In The Dancers, Weber used his linear expressionist style to depict figures that reference the artist’s interests in Ancient and Non-Western art traditions, an interest perhaps influenced by Pablo Picasso. [1] The compositional space is shallow, with the nude figures [2] standing next to a tent-like structure in the foreground. There is no middle ground, and the background is suggested only by a line establishing the ground plane. The faces of the figures are seen in full profile, but their bodies are in three-quarters profile. The figure to the left of the composition seems to be male. His long, wavy brown hair is topped with a red cap, perhaps a scarf, and his upraised right arm is clasping what may be a dagger or a spear (if the latter, only the blade and not the shaft is visible). The other figure, presumably female with an even narrower waist and rounded belly, reaches back with her left arm to grasp from what may be a bundle of standards or spears, directly in front of a triangular tent-like form. The artist uses rich earth tones along with blue-grays, with accents of strong green and red. Triangles at various angles to the picture and ground planes suggest pictorial space beyond the picture plane. Glimpses of ultramarine blue are revealed through layers of gray. Vibrant yellow-gold activates the brownish ground plane and the thin vertical forms that the female holds.
Weber’s deft handling of paint is loose and lively, and his visible brushstrokes emphasize the surface of the painting while denying representational illusion. Somewhat paradoxically, the black outline of the figures seems to delineate a pictorial space in which the bodies can move. This attenuated black line has the liveliness of gesture with the odd specificity of blind contour drawing and resembles the automatist drawing favored by Surrealist artists.
The subject of dancers was common in the work of Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, and other modernists. Art historian Percy North says, “Weber continued to show interest in the theme of the dance because it gave him the opportunity of integrating pictorial equivalents for sound, with lively color, vibrant lighting patterns, human exertion and abandon, and space definition through physical movement.” [3]
This painting was a gift from Maynard Weber, who received a favorable impression of the museum during a personal visit and offered his father’s painting to the executive director.
Notes:
[1] North, Percy. Max Weber: American Modern. New York: The Jewish Museum, 1983, p. 20.
“[A] limited edition of Cubist Poems appeared in 1914. Understandably the book was dedicated to (Alvin Langdon) Coburn, who wrote an introduction to the poetry in which he made some interesting comments about his friend’s painting:
El Greco, Cezanne, Henri Rousseau, and Picasso are the painters with whose work he is most in sympathy; but best of all he likes to study the art of primitive peoples, the sculpture of Egypt and Assyria, the great simple things that have come down to us from the past. The inclusion of Picasso in this statement is significant, for, although cubist forms had begun to surface in Weber’s paintings, this is one of the rare instances where there is any acknowledgment on Weber’s behalf of any sympathy with Picasso. Yet, presumably, Weber would not have sanctioned Coburn’s foreword if he were not in agreement with it. Throughout the rest of his career, however, Weber steadfastly disavowed any connection with what he regarded as the fads and “isms” linked to Picasso and the French moderns.”
[2] North, p. 39.
“Throughout his study of the nude, Weber examined a range of human expression from solitary meditation to hedonistic abandon. The unclothed body primarily signified sensual pleasure, freedom, and lack of restraint to him, but it also expressed innocence, vulnerability, and melancholy. (. . .)”
[3] North, p. 42.
ProvenanceEstate of Artist [1]
To 1987
Dorothy F. and Maynard J. Weber, acquired from estate of artist. [2]
From 1987
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC, given by Dorothy F. and Maynard J. Weber on December 23, 1987. [3]
Notes:
[1] Appraisal report filled out by donors, December 21, 1987, copy in object file.
[2] See note 1. Son and daughter-in-law of the artist.
[3] Deed of Gift, object file.
Exhibition HistoryForum Gallery, New York NY.
Label on back frame.
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York NY.
1990-1992
American Originals, Selections From Reynolda House Museum Of American Art
The American Federation of Arts
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami FL (9/22/1990-11/18/1990)
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs CA (12/16/1990-2/10/1991)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (3/6/1991-5/11/1991)
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis TN (6/2/1991-7/28/1991)
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth TX (8/17/1991-10/20/1991)
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago IL (11/17/1991-1/12/1992)
The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK (3/1/1992-4/26/1992)
2007
The Art of Dance
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC (4/3/2007-9/16/2007)
2009
Stieglitz Circle: Beyond O'Keeffe
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem NC (6/6/2009-11/15/2009)
2021-2022
The O'Keeffe Circle: Artist as Gallerist and Collector
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (9/10/2021-3/3/2021)
Published ReferencesMillhouse, Barbara B. and Robert Workman. American Originals. New York: Abbeville Press Pub., 1990: 118-9.
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg 200, 222, 223
Status
Not on view