Peter Max, 1937 – 2026

Groovy illustrator Peter Max, 88, died on Sept. 14. Born in Berlin, his (Jewish) family fled the Nazis and moved to Israel, Paris, and New York, where Max opened an art studio with friends, and got his start designing posters and ads for hippie events. Soon his style caught on, and became ubiquitous. I kind of like his bubbly, faux-art nouveau style, but from the late ‘60s through 1980, everyone was copying it—you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting some Peter Max ads, posters, or record covers, or some wannabe Peter Max’s work. Yellow Submarine? Sid and Marty Krofft? None of those would exist without Peter Max’s kick-starting that genre. Max told Forbes, “I put on my favorite music in my studio and paint. I pick up the brush, pick a color, put color on the canvas, answer it with another color and another, like musical improvisation. Suddenly, I have a painting. I know colors like some people know a melody. And the tunes of my favorite musicians energizes me when I work.”