Peter Max, psychedelic pop artist who epitomized flower power, dies aged 88 — SkimNews
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- Peter Max died Monday at age 88, with his son Adam Max announcing the death Wednesday in a written statement that gave no cause.
- Born Peter Max Finkelstein in 1937 to a Jewish family in Berlin, Max fled Nazi Germany as a baby with his family, living in Shanghai, Tibet, Israel, and Paris before settling in New York City at age 16.
- Max's swirling, vividly colored flower power designs epitomized 1960s counterculture and were licensed across 70 product lines including mugs, bedsheets, dresses, and the Manhattan Yellow Pages covers, a reach he later said amounted to his work being 'almost exploited.'
- He served as official artist for the Olympics, Super Bowl, World Cup, World Series, and Indianapolis 500, and his work appeared on a Boeing 777 airplane and a Norwegian Cruise Line ship, with portrait subjects ranging from U.S. presidents to Taylor Swift.
- Max pleaded guilty to tax fraud in 1997 after the IRS alleged he concealed more than $1 million in income, ultimately serving two months in a work-release program, paying $30,000, and completing 800 hours of community service teaching art in Harlem schools.
- After shutting his commercial business down in the early 1970s to reconnect with his art, Max painted a series of Statue of Liberty portraits at the White House in 1981 at first lady Nancy Reagan's invitation.
- Max was a friend of the Beatles and helped bring Swami Satchidananda to the United States to popularize yoga, though the Yellow Submarine album and film art officially credited to the late Heinz Edelmann was sometimes mistakenly attributed to him.
Why it matters: Max's death closes a chapter on a visual style that became inseparable from 1960s counterculture, and his licensing across 70 product lines, from postage stamps to a Boeing 777, shows how thoroughly one artist's vision can permeate everyday American life. His 1997 tax fraud guilty plea and 2015 family guardianship dispute, centered on his second wife Mary (who died in 2019) and son Adam, also illustrate the legal and personal entanglements that shadowed a career built on commercial ubiquity.
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