Achievements: During his long career, the artist has painted for six U.S. presidents, was the official artist for the 2006 Winter Olympics U.S. team, and has created art for Woodstock, World Cups, U.S. Tennis Opens, and Football Super Bowls. In October 2002, Max created 356 portrait paintings of the firefighters and first responders who perished in the September 11th Twin Towers attack. Each painting was presented to the surviving families of the firefighters during a ceremony at Madison Square Garden. Max was featured on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in 1968 and on the cover of LIFE Magazine in 1969. In 2015, Max was chosen by NBC to create portraits of the four coaches of The Voice (Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams), America’s highly-viewed singing competition, which have been featured in print, transit ads, billboards, and on social media. | About the Artist: He and his family fled the Nazis in 1938 and moved to Shanghai, China, where they lived for the next 10 years. Early in his life, Max fell in love with three things: comic books, movies, and jazz. In 1948, Max and his family traveled through Tibet, which had a profound effect on Max’s artistic development and spiritual growth. Before immigrating to the United States, the Max family traveled to Paris for six months in 1953 where Max spent time studying at the Louvre art museum. Max was an extremely talented realistic painter but felt that realism limited his imagination, he instead turned to a more abstract style. The influence of comic books, with their foreshortening of lines, bold colors, and heavy black outlines, stayed with Max throughout his career. This formed the foundation of Max’s style alongside his love for color, spirituality, and music. He expressed this new, psychedelic style through posters, advertising, and graphic works. The look he achieved was sought-after by companies across the country. Agencies, magazines, and national publications sought out Max’s style for a wide variety of projects and commissions. His vibrant and colorful works have become a lasting part of contemporary American culture and is synonymous with the spirit of the ‘60s and ‘70s. |
Sources:
https://petermax.com/
https://www.parkwestgallery.com/artist/peter-max/
https://petermax.com/
https://www.parkwestgallery.com/artist/peter-max/