Max Weber was born in 1881 in Bialystok, Russia, immigrating to the United States at the age of ten, becoming one of the first Americans to bring Modernism to the U.S. From 1903 to 1905 he studied the works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris. He returned to New York in 1909 and experiment with many Modernist styles.

The White Jug, 1909, depicts an arrangement of objects on a table including a white jug, a multi-colored basket, a vase, a jar, lemons, and a peach. The use of the primary colors, red, blue and yellow of the crudely constructed objects contrast beautifully with the white jug and wooden table. Weber’s intent was not in portraying “objects,” but in portraying the visual relationship of forms in a composition. Painting in this way enabled him to create his own Modern style.