Peter Max Jayme Sederberg
Peter Max Finkelstein was born on October 19, 1937. He is a German-born American artist who is most recognized for his use of psychedelic shapes and color styles in the 1960s.
A year after he was born Max’s parents fled Berlin to escape the formenting Nazi movement. They settled in Shanghai, China for the next ten years. They then moved for Haifa, Isreal for several years. Max’s family continued to move westward and stopped in Paris for several months. Max said that Paris influenced his appreciation for art. His family finally settled in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in 1953 where he attended high school at Lafayette High School. He began his formal art studies at Art Students League of New York in Manhattan
While at the Art Students League in Manahattan Max had a desire to master realism. From early morning sketch classes at 8am to the last class of the day at 8pm Max would continuously be working on his figure drawing, perspective, light and shadow, anatomy, and composition. He mainly worked with charcoals, water color, pastels, and oil paint. Max spend most of his spare time at the museums studying the techniques of the masters themselves.
Peter’s mother, Salla, was a fashion designer in Berlin. She always encouraged Peter to be creative. Once she left art supplies on all four balcony’s of their home. She told him to pick one medium, water colors, ink, pencils, brushes, or crayons, and to make a big mess and she would clean up after him.
While Peter studied painting he began to be influenced by a new source. One day he visited Mt. Carmel Observitory and his facination with the universe began. He was extremely eager to learn about space, so his parents enrolled him in evening astronomy art classes at once. He became so absorbed with astronomy that he began studying that and art at the same time. His passion for astronomy continues to this day, and you can find elements of it in his work especially during the 1960s- approptiately coined “The Cosmic ‘60s.”
In 1962 Max started a small art studio with a his friend Tom Daly called “The Daly & Max Studio.” An art director for a record company saw Max’s paintings by chance at a photo copy service. The art director immediately contacted Max and commissioned him to create an album cover for the blues piano player, Meade Lux Lewis. The album cover won many awards including the annual Society of Illustrators Award.
Peter Max was excited by the mid-’60s counterculture and turned to the medium of collage to capture the era and to create his psychedelic vision. Collage goes all the way back to the cubists work of Pablo Picasso. Although collage was already established as a technique of modernism, the use of photographic images in kaleidoscopic patterns was pioneered by Max.
“Stuatue of Liberty IV”
“Flag with Heart”
“Flag with Heart”
“Flower Blossum Lady”
“Flower Lady With 3 Profiles Collage”
Max began to see the print industry expanding with four-color web presses. To Max this meant that he could turn his art work into posters that could then be shared with the youth of America. So many new possibilities came for Max. He began to make color combinations right on the press, a process he desribed as “playing a printing press like an electic piano.” The technique is actually called “split fountain” that allowed him to blend colors as they were going through the ink rollers. Max’s posters were soon hanging in college dorms all across America as he sold several million in just 9 months.
1968 “LOVE” poster. - iconic for the late ‘60s pop-culture.
July 4, 1976 Max created an instalation and art book, Peter Max Paints America. This was the year he also began his July 4th tradition of painting the Statue of Liberty.
For the 20th anniversary of Woodstock, Max was asked to create the world’s largest stage for the Moscow Music Peace Festive.
Max was commissioned by the United States Postal Services to create the first ever 10-cent postage stamp to commemorate the Expo ‘74 World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington.
Official Artist for the 1994 World cup
The 31st annual Grammy Awards
Max first painted Taylor Swift as a gift for her grammy winning album Fearless, but has recently painted more portraits of her for her worldwide success.
Max painted 44 portraits of Barack Obama to celebrate the inauguration as the 44th U.S. President.
Peter Max currently lives in New York City with his wife Mary Max.
References
http://petermax.com/bio.html http://www.themaxcollector.com/2011_10_01_archive.html http://www.artbrokerage.com/Peter-Max?p=2&order&sort&view=grid http://www.michaelarnoldart.com/Peter_Max.htm