I was at a bookstore not long ago and saw a Peter Max art book. I picked it up and was amazed at how the colors jumped out of the book and into my memory. As I flipped through the pages it got me thinking…

 As a kid I had Peter Max posters that adored my bedroom walls. The bright colors, the shapes and the abstracts of this creative artist captured my imagination as a young child. As I grew older, his work still generated magic and mystery in my mind. They called him a pop artist; I called him a wizard of artistry.

 I can appreciate decent art after all my grandfather was an artist and actually shared a studio in younger years with “Uncle Ted” as in Degrazia. My grandfather’s art was much less abstract then Teds, I was still familiar with art.  I will admit my grandfather was not a Peter max fan. I was sure it was because my grandfather was older and did not approve of the modern artists. I didn’t matter, it was Max’s art work that was placed on my walls and not my grandfathers.

 I did some research not long ago on Max to try to see if I could find out where his mind was when he created these canvases of color, these explosions of creativity. It came to no surprise to me that German born Max had an interesting history. He was raised in Shanghai, China and was surrounded by a Buddhist monastery, a Sikh temple and a Viennese cafe.

 Being surrounded by such tranquility no doubt left an impression on Max as a child. I can only imagine that this was the base of his creativity, he lived among peace. He had a nanny that helped him learn painting which was a skill he wanted to have by watching the monks painting.

 He and his parents travelled parts of the world and in 1953 ended up in New York.Max got his start by Riverside Records and created cover art. It is said that his interest in astronomy led to his cosmic art of the 60’s and young kids like myself could by his posters and plaster them on their walls.

 Recently over the past few decades Max has painted six U.S. presidents which recently included President Obama.  He also had carved a 7,000-pound section of the Berlin Wall into a three-dimensional dove.

He is still active and alive today living with his wife in New York.  He is an environmentalist and works with human and animal rights. Max donated a great deal of his art to benefit the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Still with modern times, Max even has an application for the iPhone.  

 As a child, Max was pure magic to me, as an adult Max remains a magical icon to me. His art work from the past as well as his current art are images that bring imagination to the soul. Did you like Peter Max? What was some of your favorite art pieces?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 11:22 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.