Peter Max, who fled Nazi Germany as infant, dies at 88

Best-known works spanned Statue of Liberty, Beatles and Hendrix portraits

Peter Max, the German-born artist whose art is said to have captured the colorful, psychedelic counterculture spirit of the 1960s, died Monday at a Manhattan hospital at the age of 88.

Max’s son, Adam Max, confirmed his father’s death to The New York Times on Wednesday. Max’s close friend and longtime spokesman, Michael Pagnotta, separately confirmed the death to Rolling Stone and said Max had died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The New York Times reported that Max had long suffered from dementia.

Pagnotta told Rolling Stone that Max’s art captured an entire era’s spirit. “He had a very expansive mind,” Pagnotta said. “As much as the Beatles provided a soundtrack for that era and for that generation, Peter visualized it, and he just exploded onto the scene in the late 1960s.”

Pagnotta added: “Whatever kind of post-war optimism existed in the country, even though it was very turbulent times, Peter was able to capture that and marry it to that sort of spiritual eastern magical mystery thing, and it worked perfectly. And he believed in the mass appeal of what he was doing. He believed in making art accessible to people.”

Max was born in Berlin in 1937 to Jewish parents, according to a biography published by Park West Gallery, where the pop artist’s work has been sold. Still an infant, Max and his family fled Nazi Germany for China, where he spent several years of his youth. In 1953, at age 16, Max and his family moved from Europe to Brooklyn. Three years later, after graduating from high school, he enrolled in the prestigious New York City Art Students League, where he received classical training in drawing, anatomy and painting.

After graduating, Max opened his own studio and became a star of the New York advertising world almost overnight, according to the Park West biography. During the 1960s and 1970s, his art exploded into the mainstream, producing some of the best-known Pop Art works that came to define the look and feel of the Flower Power culture of the United States.

Max’s most recognizable works include his colorful depictions of the Statue of Liberty and portraits of celebrities including The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. Among his most widely circulated commercial projects was a psychedelic paint scheme he designed for NASCAR great Dale Earnhardt’s car.

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