From Rolling Stone · Nancy Dillon · · 1m 50s
Peter Max, psychedelic pop art pioneer, dies at 88
The German-American artist who visualized the 1960s counterculture through rainbow posters and kaleidoscopic portraits has passed away.
In brief
The German-American artist who visualized the 1960s counterculture through rainbow posters and kaleidoscopic portraits has passed away. Peter Max transformed pop art by making psychedelic imagery accessible to millions through posters, consumer goods, and public commissions that captured the optimism and spiritual…
Psychedelic artist Peter Max dies
The German-American pop art icon who created iconic rainbow posters and portraits of everyone from Bob Dylan to Taylor Swift died Monday at 88 after battling Alzheimer's disease.
From Berlin to Brooklyn
Born Peter Max Finkelstein in Berlin in 1937 to Jewish parents, he fled Nazi persecution as an infant, spent a decade in Shanghai, lived in Israel, and finally settled in Brooklyn in 1953.
Training with postwar masters
At the Art Students League of New York, Max studied alongside future pop art legends Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly, who helped pioneer the shift from abstract expressionism to pop art.
Love poster inspires Summer of Love
His instantly recognizable Be In poster layered the word Love over a rainbow background, inspiring several hundred thousand hippies to gather in Central Park to celebrate the Summer of Love.
Cosmic Jumper soars into culture
His weightless Cosmic Jumper character in bell-bottoms soared through colorful dreamscapes and appeared on a 1974 postage stamp commemorating the Spokane World's Fair.
Border signs bring psychedelia home
In the 1970s, the federal government hired Max to design Welcome to the U.S. signs for Canadian and Mexican border crossings. President Jimmy Carter revived the project in 1978, installing over a hundred trippy signs.
Art for the masses, not just galleries
Max licensed his designs for scarves, watches, butter dishes, and bath towels, believing art should be accessible to everyone. His posters decorated college dorms and executive suites alike.
“He believed in making art accessible to people.”
What to remember
Peter Max transformed pop art by making psychedelic imagery accessible to millions through posters, consumer goods, and public commissions that captured the optimism and spiritual energy of the 1960s.
