The Dean of modern Art in thus Country” NY Times

relationship to the artists of the 1910s and 1920s, the exhibition seeks to illustrate how Weber also bridges past, pre-conceived pre-war/post-war divisions, by tracing how the artist 9s early influences are married to his later responses to the art world, war, and society as a whole. According to Gallery Director and Exhibition Curator Lily Downing Burke, cGiven that each decade within Weber 9s prolific career was extremely significant, exploring the unique character and skill of his later works warranted further examination. For it is in this later period that Weber achieves a consistent style particularly in terms of line and form. Rather than developing into full-blown abstraction, the works on view reveal a synthesis into something more static, more formal, and more pensive. The power of Expressionism as the permanent thread in Weber 9s art is fully crystallized during this period in terms of action and gestures. d By the 1930s, in response to the growing crisis in world affairs, social themes began to appear in Weber 9s work as did an intensification of Jewish subjects .<br><br> During the decades that followed, Weber began to develop a distinctive new style, termed clinear expressionism d by scholar Percy North and characterized by the use of cactive and aggressive swirling patterns d that would later emerge as a signature feature of American modern art in the 1950s and 60s. More interested in capturing the intensity of emotion than conventional beauty, works on view such as Family Reunion , 1944, reveal Weber 9s skillful distortion of form, color, and space in order to achieve the highest pitch of emotional and spiritual expression. This intuitive ability to set a scene that touches on emotion is also evident in many of the still lifes and figures on view, such as Acrobats , 1946, (pictured above) and The Muses, 1944. Press Contact: Cecilia Bonn, Cecilia Bonn Marketing & Communications, (212) 734-9754, Cbonn@nyc.rr.com. (Cont.) Born in Bialystok, Russia, in 1881, Max Weber immigrated to America with his family in 1891, settled in Brooklyn, and later stu died art at the Pratt Institute under the tutelage of painter Arthur Wesley Dow. Weber left the U.S. in 1905 for Paris, where he studied with H enri Matisse and witnessed the development of Fauvism and Cubism. In 1907, both Braque and Picasso were exploring new visual possibilities that would become the basis for Cubism. Two years later, Weber would return to New York from his studies in Paris to introduce Cubism to America. He also experimented with Fauvism, Dynamism, Expressionism, and Futurism, as well as with revolutionary techniques, which he learned du ring his time in Paris. In 1909, he began showing at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 gallery, and was the first American modernist painter to merit a mus eum solo exhibition at the Newark Museum in 1913. During the 1920s, his work reflected the influences of European artists like Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Rousseau and, while exhibiting and working across the country, he also taught art periodically at the Art St udents League. In 1930, he was granted a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art during its inaugural year. After 1930, Weber dev eloped an identifiable style described as lyrical and expressionistic. His paintings depicted romanticized landscapes, peaceful domestic scenes, and religious themes. Weber 9s work during the 1930s also focused on social issues that reflected his left-wing political beliefs. Throughout the 1940 s and 1950s, Weber exhibited extensively at the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art; the Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as received numerous medals, commendations, and critical acclaim. Image credit: Max Weber, Acrobats , 1946, oil on board, 48 x 57 5/8 inches. ©2008 Estate of Max Weber, courtesy Gerald Peters Gallery. ### Gerald Peters Gallery was founded in Santa Fe in 1972 and opened a gallery in New York in 1992. Since its inception, the New York gallery has focused on premier exhibitions of works by American Masters including such shows as Robert Henri: The Painted Spirit ; Georgia O 9Keeffe ; Leon Kroll Rediscovered ; Albert Bierstadt 9s West ; American Modernism: The Francoise and Harvey Rambach Collection ; Ernest Lawson ; William Glackens ; John Sloan: An American View , and Marguerite Zorach: A Life in Ar t, along with numerous contemporary art exhibitions. The gallery represents many prominent artists 9 estates including serving as the exclusive representative for the Estate of Max Weber.

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