Comments on: Peter Max

By: Betty

Betty — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:10:39 +0000

Give me Stanley, Victor, Rick, Wes, and Anton any day. Short lived, high impact, purpose serving, influential, very creative, influenced as well, way out there dudes. Even though they didn’t invent the art nouveau style they sure arranged it in a unique manner. It was a one of a kind time in history. So creative. Would have loved to have been a part of that art and music scene! Or a fly on the wall in their studios. Sigh.
Peter Max did lift the spirit too. That’s never a bad thing. Betty

By: kim

kim — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:14:53 +0000

where is the original universal harmony by peter max and what was the date it was made

By: sara

sara — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:57:47 +0000

Ok, so I was a Monkees fan too. I guess reading the book about Max (The Art of Peter Max, you mentioned) took him up a notch in my estimation. As you said, Charley, there is something about the blended whole of his work that pleases me and a few pieces of his early work–the ones with the monks–have a sophisticated simplicity that I find especially appealing.

By: Charley Parker

Charley Parker — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:29:20 +0000

The Madonna of pop art, eh, Daniel?

I agree that much of is is formulaic, and he really cranked it out to make money,and stopped at nothing to find news ways to sell it; but in some of his better pieces he managed to distill that Edleman/Griffin op art psychedelic buzz, and some kind of art deco design sense that they often didn’t have, into a blended whole that worked. Not often, but enough to please the designer, artist, cartoonist (and countercultural freakazoid) in me. But I do very much prefer the more original progenetors of that style that I mentioned in the article. Max was the Monkees to their Beatles, but even the Monkees had talent (at least one of them.)

By: Dan van Benthuysen

Dan van Benthuysen — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 03:37:41 +0000

I beg to differ. I find his art numbingly formulaic — and not from formulas he did much to create, synthesize or refine.

I think (as I did 40 years ago) it’s as hard to admire Peter Max’s minute amount of talent and skill spread so amazingly thin as it is equally difficult to ignore his prodigious, relentless self-promotion and marketing.

That, at least, one has to respect.

By: sara

sara — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:15:22 +0000

Thanks for this article. I’ve always liked Max’s work and never could understand why it was sneered at in some circles while Warhol’s soup cans and Lichtenstein’s comic books were considered “fine art”. I remain convinced that commercial success is synonymous with not being taken seriously in some sectors of the art world. Anyway, Peter Max manages to capture a cheerful and yet thoughtful aesthetic in his work. Looking forward to the future articles on those “pioneers” of this style.