Peter Max

He is married to Mary Max. He is a vegetarian and a strong supporter of human and animal rights. He often dedicates his art work to these causes and has donated art work worth $180,000 to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

He was born in Berlin, Germany to Salla, a fashion designer and her husband. The family moved to Shanghai, China in 1938 to escape Nazism in their home country. They remained in China for ten years during which the young Peter was exposed to the rich art and traditions of the Chinese which greatly influenced him during his career as an artist.

Over the next few years the family traveled and stayed at various exotic locations all over the world including Israel, Tibet, Africa, and Europe before finally settling in the U.S.

While at Paris where the family stayed for several months he took classes at the Louvre Museum. When he was in Israel, he studied with the Austrian expressionist, Professor Honik who introduced him to the paintings of artists like Henri Matisse, Max Beckmann and Maurice Vlaminck. He also had an early interest in astronomy and attended evening astronomy classes at the Technion Institute.

His family settled at Brooklyn in 1953 and Peter attended Lafayette High School in New York City.

He began his formal art training at the Art Students League of New York in 1956 under Frank Reilly, a realistic painter. He studied anatomy, figure drawing and composition. Max worked relentlessly with oil paint, watercolors, pastels, and charcoal.

He started a small arts studio called ‘The Daly & Max Studio’ with his friend Tom Daly in 1962. His works caught the eye of an Art Director for a record company who asked him to do a painting for a record album cover for the blues piano player, Meade Lux Lewis. The cover won several awards and accolades and helped him progress his career.

From 1964 to 1967 he worked extensively on collages—a concept that was being popularized by the counterculture of the 1960s. He developed a unique technique of collage making using antique photographs in kaleidoscopic patterns.

During this time, the print media industry was also expanding and this meant the wonderful opportunity to convert his original art work into posters and make his work known all over the country. His posters marked by vivid colours and bold strokes were soon a rage among the youth and could be found in college campuses all over the U.S.

An exhibition ‘The World of Peter Max’ was held in 1970 in which many of his posters and paintings were featured. The exhibition opened at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.

He was invited by President Reagan to paint six Liberty portraits at the White House in 1981. He has also painted for five U.S. Presidents: Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

Peter Max is one of the most popular living artists who has held more than 40 international museum exhibitions and more than 50 gallery shows worldwide. He is credited to have revolutionized the art of the 1960s with his ‘Cosmic 60s’ style and deeply influenced the American counterculture.