Max Weber: First major British show of early US modernist

Associated media

Max Weber: An American Cubist in Paris and New York 
1905–1915

24 June – 5 October 2014

Although the career and influence of Russian-American émigré Max Weber (1881–1961) have been widely examined within the United States, with this exhibition Ben Uri unveils a series of firsts: the first major UK museum show of Weber' s work;  the first to examine his career and influence within a European context; and the  first significant showing of his work in the UK since 1913.

Much of this work is owned by the University of Reading. Weber met the photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882?–1966) in 1910. The two men shared a fascination for the New York skyline reflected in Coburn’s photographs and Weber’s dynamic cityscapes, including New York. They struck up a lifelong friendship, conducted through letters after Coburn settled in England in late 1912 and Coburn put together the collection of Weber’s work later bequeathed to the University of Reading. The collection also includes Coburn’s album of 79 photographs of Weber’s work (University of Reading Special Collections), together with an important portrait of Coburn by Weber (University of Reading Art Collection), and Coburn’s reciprocal photograph of Weber (from a British private collection that also once belonged to Coburn). 
  


Weber’s exhibition with and influence upon the British avant-garde is also explored through his inclusion in Roger Fry’s first Grafton Group Exhibition at the Alpine Club Gallery, London in March 1913; seven of the eleven Weber pictures shown (all but one from the Reading Collection) are included are in the current show.

The exhibition therefore includes work by  Alvin Langdon Coburn, and British painters Vanessa Bell, Frederick Etchells, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, C.R.W. Nevinson and Wyndham Lewis. There is also a work on paper by Wassily Kandinsky.

The Ben Uri
108A Boundary Road
London
NW8 0RH