Peter Max, known for groovy art that came to symbolize the 60s, dies at 88

Sept 16 (Reuters) – Pop artist Peter Max, whose dreamy, boldly colored works provided an artistic backdrop for the 1960s U.S. hippie movement and made him a commercial art powerhouse, died on Monday at a hospital in Manhattan at the age of 88, a spokesperson for his family said on Wednesday.

Max’s visions – often influenced by his love of astronomy – were everywhere in the ’60s and ’70s and almost as much a part of the decade’s youth culture as sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. They were like artistic renderings of an acid trip and were, in the vernacular of the time, really groovy.

The colors were vibrant and the images surreal – cosmic landscapes and starbursts, doves and floating peace symbols, kaleidoscopic butterflies, puffy clouds and other flower-power imagery. Rock stars such as the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger were Max’s portrait subjects, as well as his friends. 

President Ronald Reagan was a fan and Max donated a painting of the Statue of Liberty to the Reagan Presidential Library.

“His decorative posters show Max to be a visionary fascinated by time, space and evolution,” a 1967 Village Voice critique said. “A psychedelic skyline prophesizes the day when skyscrapers may be temples, when the Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room may be used for meditation.”

Max is survived by his daughter Libra and his son Adam. 

“My father was my best friend. I feel incredibly blessed to have been so deeply loved and to be his daughter. I hope that alongside his remarkable artistic legacy, people will remember his kindness, his gentleness, and how much he genuinely cherished putting joy into the world,” his daughter said in statement.

(Reporting and writing by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by David Brunnstrom, Diane Craft and Christopher Cushing)