Peter Max, the German-American artist whose psychedelic posters and rainbow-hued portraits helped shape the visual language of the 1960s counterculture, has died aged 88. He died on Monday at a Manhattan hospital after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, his close friend and spokesperson Michael Pagnotta confirmed.
Across a career spanning six decades, Max made vivid pop art that carried the era's optimism and visual exuberance far beyond galleries. His posters, filled with Day-Glo flowers, butterflies, rainbows, stars and planets, sold by the millions. Their bright, accessible imagery made Max one of the most visible and commercially successful artists of his time.
His work gave visual form to the blissed-out spirit associated with the countercultural 1960s. While his art drew on the kaleidoscopic look of psychedelic culture, Max was a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He expanded his consciousness through yoga rather than drugs.
Max was a defining artist of the pop art movement, producing both decorative images and portraits of public figures. Among his subjects were Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, President Obama and Taylor Swift. His images became familiar to audiences well outside the traditional art world, helping turn his style into a widely recognised part of postwar American visual culture.
Pagnotta, who began working for Max in the mid-80s, confirmed the artist's death. Max is survived by his children, Adam and Libra.
Max's health had declined in his later years. The New York Times reported in 2019 that he had dementia. That year, relatives and business associates faced legal scrutiny amid suspicions that Max had been exploited as his health and mental faculties worsened. The brief gives no details of those proceedings or their outcome.
His career also attracted claims that did not reflect his work. Max did not design MTV's logo in the 1980s. His own legacy rests instead on a body of psychedelic posters and portraits whose colours and motifs reached millions of people over six decades.
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