Portrait
1920
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1920
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Portrait is a 1920 by Max Weber, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A man’s face floats against a dark background, broken into flat, angular shapes. His eyes, nose, and mouth look like puzzle pieces pushed together. Weber saw African masks in Paris and Japanese prints as a student. He borrowed their bold, simple lines to rebuild the human face from scratch. The result feels both ancient and modern—like a mask you could pick up and wear. If you like this, look up impasto—a technique where paint is laid on thick, creating texture you can almost feel.
The American artist Max Weber was deeply influenced by non-Western art, including African masks that he viewed at Parisian museums and Japanese prints, which he learned about as a student. Around 1919, he began to combine these interests in a series of relief prints, such as the one seen here. Weber deconstructed the human figure into component parts, emphasizing its simplicity and geometry.
This print was reproduced as an illustration for a short story published in a 1922 issue of the avant-garde journal Broom .
Read the full account in the museum source.
