Peter Max

Peter Max became one of the most famous artists in the world by bridging the youth culture of the 1960s and the realm of fine art couture and seeing his outsized works mark some of the biggest-ticket cultural and sporting events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Born to Jewish parents in Nazi Germany, Max fled with them to spend his early years in Shanghai, China, exposing himself to multivariate aesthetic influences even before the family settled in New York City. In the early 1960s he began coalescing his so-called "cosmic" art signature - bold, nature-influenced iconography of the East combined with the vibrant colors and pop-art of the emerging youth culture of the '60s to create the so-called "cosmic" style. Rendered in millions of posters printed by Max's own cottage-industry company, his style would be copied voluminously, eventually becoming the graphic common denominator of the Age of Aquarius. In the 1970s, inspired by the American bicentennial, he began an annual rite of painting the Statue of Liberty and adding portraiture of U.S. presidents, other world leaders and celebrities to his high-profile work. Now a celebrity artist, Max would increasingly be tapped by sports and special event organizers to provide official designs, original art and graphic themes. A 2002 collection of his works, The Art of Peter Max, became a bestseller. The creator of a truly American aesthetic, Max would see his art mentioned with the music of the Beatles as one of the definitive cultural cues of the age.