Art & Framing Solutions - Featured Artist

Peter Max

Peter Max has gone from visionary pop artist of the 1960s to America's contemporary painter laureate. His vibrant colors create an important dimension in the history of American art. Born in Berlin and raised in Shanghai, Tibet, Israel and France, Max's pan-cultural background has made his work rich in artistic diversity. Max finally settled in New York where he studied at the Art Students League, Pratt Institute, and the School of Visual Arts. After completing his studies he opened a design studio and in the next few years won more than sixty-five awards for product, fashion, food, book, and poster designs. In 1964 he closed the studio to go into "creative retreat." It was then that he began making the colorful, mind-expanding silkscreens which are his hallmark. After Max's second retreat, from 1972 until 1976, he "reappeared" with a book of fifty paintings, in honor of each state, dedicated to the Bicentennial.

Discovery

Cosmic Flyer

In 1991, Max's one-man retrospective show at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersberg drew the largest turnout for any artist in Russian history. Over 14,500 people attended. As a painter for four former U.S. Presidents (Carter, Ford, Bush and Reagan) in 1993, Max was approached by the inaugural committee to create posters for Bill Clinton's inauguration.

Flag with Heart

Mona Lisa Portraits

Max has always been ready to apply his creative talent to important global events and has produced posters for many such events, including Summit of the Americas, Gorbachev's State of the World Forum, and the United Nations Earth Summit, for which he had designed a series of twelve stamps that became the best-selling stamps in U.N. history. For the U.N.'s 50th anniversary, Max produced an installation of fifty paintings in different color combinations of the landmark United Nations Building. A lover of music, Max has been designated Official Artist for the Grammys, The 25th Anniversary of the New Orleans Jazz Festival and the Woodstock Music Festival. Max has had approximately forty museum shows internationally, set up under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, and more than fifty gallery shows worldwide. His works appear in the prominent collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.