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Peter Max, whose colorful, psychedelic pop art expressed the optimism of the “flower power” movement of the 1960s and graced everything from postage stamps to a cruise ship, has died at 88.
Max died on Monday, his son, Adam Max, said in a written statement on Wednesday. No cause was given.
“We will remember his extraordinary creativity, his warmth, his curiosity, and the way he saw beauty and possibility everywhere,” Adam Max wrote in the statement. “His art became part of American culture, but the man behind that art – the father we knew and loved – is the person we will miss most.”
Max began his career in graphic design in the 1960s and his swirly, colorful, instantly recognizable designs epitomized the era’s “flower power” art. But thanks to his prolific output and fun, accessible style, Max’s work remained well known and popular well into the 21st century.
He described his own work as “always on the side of the peaceful nature. I don’t discuss in my paintings negative things, I don’t dwell on it in my mind and don’t dwell on it in my canvasses.”
Max was the official artist for the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Indianapolis 500, the World Cup, the World Series and many other events. His art appeared on a Boeing 777 airplane and a Norwegian Cruise Line ship. His portrait subjects ranged from US presidents to Taylor Swift.
But in his first flush of success in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his mural-like tableaus of flowers, the cosmos and cartoonish figures – all in vivid colors such as turquoise, orange and neon green – seemed to be everywhere. Dorm room walls were plastered with his posters. Household furnishings such as clocks and bedspreads sported his designs.
He even created covers for the Manhattan Yellow Pages, a business phone directory distributed to millions of people. Max himself was featured on the cover of Life magazine in 1969, his trademark dark, bushy mustache framing a hearty grin.
Max was born Peter Max Finkelstein in 1937 to a Jewish family in Berlin. They fled Nazi Germany for Shanghai when he was a baby and later spent time in Tibet, Israel and Paris before settling in New York City when Max was 16. By then, he said in an interview, he was already “a huge fan of American culture”: comics, movies and “all the jazz music.”
By the 1960s, Max’s bold, unique style was a hit with ad agencies, publications, the corporate world and in pop culture, leading to a booming commercial business. “My work was really, I would say, almost exploited,” he said. “It was on mugs, it was on bedsheets, it was on dresses, it was on silks and scarves and ties – 70 product lines.”
Max shut the business down for a time in the early 1970s to reconnect with his art. One of his biggest projects after returning to public life was a series of portraits of the Statue of Liberty, painted at the White House at the invitation of first lady Nancy Reagan in 1981.
Max weathered various controversies in his personal and professional life. He pleaded guilty to tax fraud in 1997 after the IRS alleged he concealed more than $1m in income from his art. He was originally sentenced to two months in prison but was allowed to serve the time in a work-release program, pay the back taxes and a $30,000 fine, and perform 800 hours of community service teaching art in Harlem schools.
In 2015, his family life became tabloid fodder in a back-and-forth between his second wife, Mary, and Adam, his son from a previous marriage. The son and a guardian alleged that Mary Max had depleted his finances and browbeat him. She in turn claimed that they had kept him from her against his will and stolen paintings that belonged to her. Mary Max died in 2019.
The art for the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine was sometimes mistakenly attributed to Max, but the design for the album cover and Yellow Submarine movie are officially credited to the late Heinz Edelmann. Max was friends with the Beatles and many other celebrities. He also had a deep interest in Eastern spiritualty, bringing “Swami” Satchidananda Saraswati to the US and helping him popularize yoga in the country.
Max’s first marriage to Elizabeth Nance ended in divorce. He is survived by Adam and his daughter, Libra.
