Peter Max

For more than four decades, artist Peter Max has been at the forefront of American pop culture. As art historian Malcolm Genet noted, “Max’s appeal. Like those of the most enduring American icons, such as George Gershwin, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, and Bob Dylan, spans all national demographics and has done so for several generations.”

Max’s art first attained prominence in the late 1960s, when it captured the imagination of the entire Woodstock generation. His influence on the art of that era has often been compared by art crtics to the Beatle’s influence on music.

His work has been exhibited in record-breaking one-man museum exhibitions and galleries throughout the U.S. But just as the vibrancy, energy and enigmatic quality of his artwork cannot be categorized, neither can he. “The media is my canvas,” declared Max, and has proven it by creating a 250-foot World’s Fair mural, a 600-foot-wide by 80-foot- high backdrop for the Woodstock ‘99 stage, and the entire exterior of Continental Airlines’ millennium super jet. "Working on this kind of scale, and capturing this immense audience, is unprecedented in art history," says Charles A. Riley II, author of The Art of Peter Max.

And nearly everyone who’s anyone – from U.S. Presidents to international statesmen; spiritual leaders to political activists; sports icons to rock idols– has had a portrait painted by Peter Max.

The public dimension of his art has extended to major events in the arts, music, sports, technology and the humanities— from the Grammy Awards to the Super Bowl to Earth Day. And his artistic contributions to the causes of world peace, ecology, human rights, and animal protection, have made him a folk hero and endeared him to millions.

Regardless of the subject or the medium upon which it is painted, the art of Peter Max conveys the joy of creativity, the vision of a bright, hopeful planet, and the wonders of our infinite, expanding universe.