Max Weber
Chinese Restaurant
1915
This work depicts a Chinese restaurant, one of the many that were opening in New York City in the early twentieth century as a growing number of Asian immigrants settled in America. Max Weber, himself an immigrant, sought to capture the hustle-and-bustle and ornate décor typical of New York’s Chinese restaurants. He achieved these effects by assimilating the lessons of French Cubism, evident in the kaleidoscopic composition of fragmented forms, fractured planes, and patterned sections that recall the wallpaper often incorporated in Cubist collage. Although Weber’s painting is largely abstract, the artist provides clues to its subject in the pattern of the checkered restaurant floor, the scrolled leg of a table, the Chinese red, black, and gold color scheme, and the suggestion of tabletops. For contemporary audiences, Chinese Restaurant exemplified how thoroughly Weber was able to translate European modernism into a potent vehicle for expressing the dynamism of the new American urban landscape.
On view
Floor 7
Date
1915
Classification
Paintings
Medium
Oil, charcoal, and collaged paper on linen
Dimensions
Overall: 40 × 48 1/8in. (101.6 × 122.2 cm)
Accession number
31.382
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase
Rights and reproductions
© artist or artist’s estate
API
artworks/3270
