Head

Max Weber

1919-20

A small woodcut in which Max Weber distills a human head into bold, simplified shapes and flat patches of color—like a miniature, stylized portrait printed to explore expressive abstraction.

Set in a tall, postage‑stamp–like blue frame on a wide sheet, the image hits you with a tired, masklike face: rough black hair, a red, curved form crossing the features, and the thin, textured bite of the carved wood visible in the grainy blacks and uneven color.

This work shows how early American modernists used traditional printmaking (the woodcut) to translate European avant‑garde ideas into compressed, emotionally charged images, opening the medium to modernist abstraction and intimacy.

Palette

Art Terms

Woodcut Print Portrait Abstraction Avant-garde Modern art

Exhibitions

Max Weber, 1881–1961: In Memoriam

1961

Recent American Woodcuts and Prints by Marin, Hopper and Weber

1952

Weber, Klee, Lehmbruck, Maillol

1930

American Prints of the 20th Century

1954