Frieze
1919-1920
Medium
color woodcut on laid paper
Dimensions
image: 5.08 × 10.8 cm (2 × 4 1/4 in.) sheet: 16.83 × 23.81 cm (6 5/8 × 9 3/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Jack and Margrit Vanderryn
Accession Number
2015.114.2
Art Historical Context
Max Weber's *Frieze* (1919–1920) is a delicate color woodcut on laid paper, capturing the artist's exploration of modernist abstraction during a pivotal post-World War I era. Measuring just 5.08 × 10.8 cm for the image, this intimate print evokes the horizontal procession of ancient friezes—think Parthenon reliefs reimagined through a Cubist lens. Weber, a Russian-born Jewish immigrant who became a key figure in early American modernism, drew from African, Oceanic, and archaic sources, blending geometric fragmentation with rhythmic figuration. The medium shines here: color woodcuts demand met...
About the Artist
Max Weber
Max Weber (1881–1961), born in Białystok in the Russian Empire (now Poland) to Orthodox Jewish parents, immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, at age ten with his family, joining his tailor father.) There, he pursued art studies at the Pratt Institute under Arthur Wesley Dow, an innovative teacher who emphasized expression and form over traditional narrative, drawing from Japanese art and Paul Gauguin....