Peter Max: Life and the History of the Technicolor Style

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Introduction

Born in German, Peter Max is known for his enduring colored images and an enchanting style with a reflection of liveliness and enthusiastic spirit. Max with his contemporary Andy Warhol captured “Statue of Liberty, Mona Lisa, Mick Jagger and George Washington with the stroke of his brushes with his own unique style known as king Technicolor style.” Major part of his childhood was spent traveling with his parents to China, India, Africa, Israel and Paris until they finally settled at the United States.

Admission at the Art Students League

His passion for painting induced in him to take admission at the Art Students League, Pratt Institute, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. After he left the art school in 1960, he produced “cosmic imagery” that made him most popular figure in the world of art. He had also adopted expertise in graphic designs. The Life magazine gave him space on its cover page. Max is a very prolific artist having “worked with various acrylics, oils, water colors, pastels, charcoal, etchings, engravings, lithographs, serigraphs, silkscreens, sculpture and computer graphics.” ^e He was also influenced by commercial arts and art nouveau with the incorporation of psychedelic colors in floral and celestial patterns. ^f With his Cosmic 60’s art and transcendental Pop imagery, he has created an incredible impression upon the younger generation. He was among very few painters who were privileged to get a chance to paint for four former U.S Presidents. He also painted several posters for the inauguration ceremony of the President Bill Clinton and also got an opportunity to be invited at White House for painting of the historical moment of the day – signing of the Peace Accord.

He is fortunate enough to put to display his paintings in around forty International museum shows, and more than fifty gallery shows all over the world and has appeared also in many of the collection centers of several museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Many of the Premier art institutions also display his solo paintings with his trademark that reaches across the borders.

Peter Max’s Art

Peter Max’s art is a personification and a representation of the spirited younger generation. Victor Zubel in 1960, art director of New York agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach also prophesized that “Max would be Walt Disney of the next generation.” Another contemporary painter Kean Deardoff who was the art director of the new defunct leftist magazine, Evergreen Review, gave prediction that he would “become the first artist since Norman Rockwell in the 40s to be known by the American public at large.” In 1967, Max was designing posters and soon when his company Security Printing Company began to receive large number of requests that they needed personal copies of the posters, Max formed the Peter Max Posters. Within the span of eighteen months, Peter sold 2.5 million posters and by the spring of 1969, it had appeared in many boutiques and restaurants.

Peter Max’s Cosmic 60 Style

In 1960, Peter Max created Cosmic 60 style embodied with a bold linear type of painting using fauvist colors and displaying transcendental themes, which was a revolution in the world of art. From his paintings there is an essence of this expressionistic style creating sensuous impression. Peter is known as the visionary pop artist and has dynamism of neo-Expressionism and with the use of his vivacious colors became part of the culture of generation next. This form of painting emerged during late 1970 and went in contradiction to the academic standards that had spread in Europe. It emphasized artist’s viewpoint, his emotions which prevailed over the dependability and presented the actual things. The theme of the painters generally appeared to be altered and distorted. They painted the pictures of the human body in a very rough manner and violent way. Painters of the period used violent colors and embroidered lines creating deep emotional appeal. They tried to present inner feelings and expressions rather than mere outward realistic world, seeking to portray not only realistic endeavor but also emotions and responses through events and figures. As Non-Expressionist, he used the bright, primary colors with the minimum use of the black contour drawing defining his face.

He crafted with great subtle dexterity the paintings of American icons like Lady Liberty and American Flag, as a symbol of nations pride, freedom and democracy. He Painted11 giant Liberty heads in 1986 and one of these paintings got coverage on Metro and Metro Santa Cruz front pages. For the George Bush, he painted Thousand Points of Light, and for the inauguration of the Bill Clinton’s, he painted 100 portraits of Clinton that made their appearance on stage. He said that about this project, “That was a labor of love”. (source given). When he was having dinner with Clintons, Mrs. Clinton told him that they were his greatest fans. In 1994, Max completed his fourth Grammy Award winner-picture of a peacock for NBC television.

Max posters left a deep impression on the minds of Americans with the thoughts ranging from the world peace, ecology, animal and human rights while explaining again the role of artist in the new light. His posters also became the medium to raise money for the victims of the 9/11 attacks on Pentagon. A poster created on the occasion of the 25^th Anniversary of Earth Day depicted large image of the Earth appearing to be floating on the horizon between two ships sailing towards the sea. At the background is shown with the vivid colors and images of swirling clouds and an emerging sun showering its rays as one figure on the foreground is enjoying the scene.

Max’s multicultural background has given his work a rich texture and artistic character with a deep influence on classical Western Art, European expressionism, American jazz and the ancient traditional culture of China. Max said, “My art is an expression of myself. My art has to do with where I am and what I’m doing… I’m like a jazz musician, only I play with colors and I love it.”

In 2006, he created 356 portraits of the firefighters who were killed while rescuing people on World Trade Center on 9/11. He worked on beautifying “sepia-toned photographic prints” for complete five months. He said that while he involved himself in the paintings of these men and looked into their eyes every night, he felt like he knew them.

Max’s fascination with the cosmos is also very well seen when he rose to fame with his psychedelic style, which was named as Cosmic ’60. All through his career as a painter, he has created themes associated with space and astronaut out which included portraits of astronauts. He painted the pictures of John Glenn, Edwin Buzz, Aldrin and a series honoring Apollo 11 and the painting of Air and Space especially created by the Smithsonian to commemorate the 25th Anniversary when Neil Armstrong landed on moon. He also painted for the several covers of the magazine of the National Space Society’ Ad Astra, and also on the winter 06 issue. He also painted dozen portraits in the honor of Ansari and her International Space Station mission. It was a journey that acknowledged her to be the world’s first private female space explorer. All these paintings are on the vivid oil on canvas, the work done as the artist’s trademark expressionist style with rainbow of hues. The effects these paintings created were similar to the famous 1989 series “40 Gorbys”, as homage to Gorbachev.

Labeled as Painter Laureat

Labeled as Painter Laureate, Max created and formulated number of iconic images of notable personalities and the heads of states including six U.S Presidents and the Dalai Lama and also done the paintings for the events like the World Cup, the World Series, the GRAMMYs and the Super Bowl. Among the others, his works included the posters of Chairman/co-founder of digital home technologies firm Prodea System when she took upon the private space travel in 2004 and she and her family underwrote the inaugural X prize. It was given to honor the family for showing a way towards the human spaceflight.

By 1960 it was the period of psychedelic art form that became a quite revolutionary concept in itself and the most important exponent of this art form was Peter Max. The caption of clocks designed by Max promoted by General Electric depicted that every Max clock, “transposes time into multi-fantasy colors.” (source given) In many of the corporate advertisements during late 1960’s, there was the depiction of the psychedelic themes. There were variety of colors and swaying images and swirls to bring out the attributes that marked the psychedelic form of art. The company logo with the black and white color gave a great visual impact. At that time many companies were using psychedelic paintings. For e.g. NBC created psychedelic advertisements between the years 1968 and 1969 and in 1968, Campbell’s soup created a poster that promised to “Turn your wall souper-delic!”

Psychedelic Art as the Most Popular Form of Art

The psychedelic art became most popular form of art to be used by the companies to create advertisements for marketing their consumer products. Peter Max also got an opportunity to create a psychedelic landscape for the Chelsea National Bank commissioned, and used the neon green, pink, and blue monkeys as a part of the advertisements for a zoo.

It was the psychedelic world of fantasy with the land of colors and psychedelic bubbles providing the most appropriate backdrop for advertisements. Slowly the term psychedelic saw a change and came to be understood as anything that abounded the youth culture, which is colorful, has an unusual appeal and fashionable. By the middle of the 1970’s, the psychedelic art movement had been virtually accepted as an art form by commercial world and entered into the world of capitalists to lure the market forces and give the push to the major powers to take the market in their fold.

The psychedelic culture had its beginning at San Francisco’s Haight-Asbury district, where there was the emergence of new style of music, art and literature. The changes were brought about by the dissatisfaction among the youths on owing to the political conditions conforming to the famous Summer of Love-referring to the few months during 1967 when a new subculture started, adopting an adjective psychedelic. This word owes its origin to the Greek terms meaning for ‘mind’ (psyche), and ‘manifest’ (delos). Attainment of Psychedelic experience virtually means perceiving that aspect of mind, which we are unaware of, in other words, it is that creative aspect of our part, which wants to be liberated from the superficial bonds and make the life exciting and more enjoyable and spirited.

Summer of Love

Among the various facets of Peter Max, his expression of Summer of Love was an emblem of the true spirit, freedom and cultural independence. Summer of Love was the defining movement in the history of America when in the summer of 1967 thousands of young Americans gathered at the Haight-Ashbury at the neighborhood of San Francisco to celebrate the new cultural and political rebellion. During the same time, Hippies had also gathered at the New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, Washington, D.C, Chicago, Vancouver and all across Europe to spread the new waves of revolution expressing their personal freedom and emotional freedom in the form of music, psychedelic drugs, sexual freedom, creative expression, and politics.

At San Francisco, Peter Max celebrated the 40^th anniversary of the Summer of Love by dedicating his Pop Art works.

During the weekend of 1960 as Bands of Jefferson Starship returned to increase the momentum of the Summer of Love at the Golden Gate Park, the point of hippie culture, the same year Max’s work continued to make a spark when youngsters were putting the copies of their posters on their walls. The colorful imagery with the help of which he displayed his exorbitant colors and spirit of Summer of Love is enough to consider him the man of generation today. Many including De young Museum showcased the paintings of Peter Max in 2007 as celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. He also gave license for his art to get imprinted on as diverse objects as bed sheets, eyeglasses, clocks and jewelry. In his painting Love, he used the combination of the flat, cool, dark colors with the graduated warm and transparent yellow, orange, and pink colors at the background.

Art Nouveau

In 1960, another form of art emerged known as Art Nouveau, which was most popular in 1890’s. Its specialty lay in the formation of the images in the stylized letters and organic shapes. His poster Peace Sign showed a shape that became a universal symbol of protest against Vietnam War. He used the bright, and primary colors like red, blue and yellow revealing the different shades of peace. It shows white doves – symbol of peace taking flights out of the heavy black outlines whereas the flowers shaped like children appeared to be running in the opposite direction. This poster was displayed on the cover page in 1968 and the period that Max called as the Cosmic Art. It displayed rays, stars, clouds and planets, the most popular form of art. The bottom half is composed of the mirror image of the background, which lay displayed at the top. There is a reflection of the shimmering effect using complementary color pairs with the deepening vibrating effect if they are placed next to each other.

During his period known as the creative retreat, he experimented with various art forms and among them the one painting that needed to be highlighted is the Year 2250. This painting is the celebration of past and future. This colored work shows Max’s interest in the spirituality and astronomy. This painting depicts space ships hovering over the ancient pyramids while several of the Zen boats taking glides on the water. Artist also made use of the ultra Day-Glo colors, showing brightness. He also made use of the broken lines bringing the characteristic feature of his earlier works. Yet another painting Sailboat with Pyramid is a lithographic print. He used yellow color at the background and used orange crayons for creating stylized boat and a pyramid with mountains and flying saucers. The use of red, yellow and orange creates an impression of warmth, calmness and sun-drenched scenes where the present, past and future scenes seem to get mixed up.

In his painting Astrological Astroplane formed in 1968, Max made the use of the imageries of space ships, comets and profiles. This work is filled with bright colors enhancing the thematic experience, creating a certain kind of explosive device ready to be exploded. In the Grammy poster 26 years later impressions were the same but here he joined and mixed the elements of the various other works. He used the purple colors orange and green, with background painted in black. Amidst of all this cosmic imagery, there is a sign of stylized gramophone symbolizing Grammy Awards.

As a child Peter Max’s life was filled with travel and adventure and during his tenure, he adopted various styles reflecting his deep profound impact in the creative works in his later parts of life. During the part of his life, he was making use of the Calligraphy brushes being used by his Chinese Nanny and soon his fascination grew for American comic books he purchased from street merchant and began to adopt their styles. First he adopted the realistic approach and graphic style towards his paintings and one of the best among them was Top Cat. “With a blob of wet black ink, Max folded the paper to form a face like mirror image. He flopped and repeated the image over the same side of the face, and placed photos in the negative spaces giving a mysterious look and a sinister quality”. With the elements having dual meanings like cats faces and bowtie/butterfly give the impression of surreal and effect of dream. In other words, there is an essence of mysterious quality in these materials.

Not only this work captures the moment and the feelings of the 1960 but also shows how his childhood was spent in Asia and his experiences in the Asian continent. The painting Kaleidoscope Lips looks like a Japanese fan in a complete circle, but the images depicted in this painting are all adopted from the fashion magazines. There is also an effect of the repeating, overlapping, kaleidoscopic photo collage elements that make swirling movements in an endless circle, while (bright) Day-Glow light colors dominate the background.

Dedication Toward the Protection of Deterioration Environment

Through his use of brushes and colors, he has also raised the voice for the rights of both humans and animals, and showed his dedication towards the protection of deterioration environment. For e.g. Peter Max created a poster for events to be organized in 2008 by Sustain CommWorld to raise the awareness on environment issues and inspired by the thought that art is the celebration of beauty and what else is more beautiful than the painting of Green Earth, he decided to create a poster for SustainCommWorld. For his painting, first he decided upon the right paper to use that could present his work with great brightness. He looked for many options but finally he chose Appleton Coated’s Utopia Two: Extra Green (U2:XG) to bring out the quality and physical appearance. It is the best quality paper in North America with FSC certificate, created with renewable energy and 30 per cent pcw.

Peter Max’s work became so popular that he was constantly in demand by everyone. Seventy-two companies are manufacturing products with the designs painted by him and he sold hundreds and millions of dollars worth of merchandise ranging from General Electric clocks to Burlington socks. It is said; “Max is to art as the Beatles is to music”. Max is a true man of the art world with the art making the appearance in museums, magazine covers, and TV. In 1970, he went into seclusion to adopt the style and creation he loves the most.

Conclusion

His paintings reflect the spontaneous way he moves his brush strokes to pour out his feelings and feelings of the general Americans. Every time it is something new in his paintings but within his own predefined style and parameters. Whatever style he adopts like expressionism, or psychedelic culture or Mauve art, the essence of his style remains the same.

Bibliography

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Hoffmann, Frank W. and Bailey, William G. Arts & Entertainment Fads. New York: Haworth Press, 1990.

Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.

Heimann, Jim. 60’s All American Ads. Italy: Taschen, 2002.

Jensen, Michael. Global Art Icon – And Space Enthusiast – Peter Max Paints 12 Portraits of Anousheh Ansari, the World’s First Female Private Space Explorer, 2006. Web.

Marc,Joseph. Antiques, collectibles, estate items, reproductions & art from dealers & collectors world wide, 2006, Web.

Psychedelic Culture, 2008. Web.

Rhem, Kathleen T. Art Icon Reaches Out to Victims Through His Work. 2008. Web.

San Diego Earth Times. Peter Max to present posters, 1995. 2008. Web.

Scholastic Art. “Peter Max Working With Color”. Scholastic Art, Vol. 36 No. 4 (2006): 1-13.

SustainCommWorld. Peter Max Poster Created Through Sustainable Green Process, 2008. Web.

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