American pop artist dies at 88

American artist Peter Max, best known for creating the cover of The Beatles’ 1969 album “Yellow Submarine,” has died at the age of 88, his son told ABC News on Wednesday, according to AFP and Reuters.

Born Peter Max Finkelstein in Berlin in 1937, he was forced to flee Nazi Germany with his family. By the 1960s, he had become a prominent artist whose brightly colored compositions, inspired by the psychedelic movement, appeared across a wide range of products, CE Report quotes AGERPRES.

He later created, among other works, MTV’s first logo in the 1980s and was named an official artist of the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States.

“We will remember his extraordinary creativity, his warmth, his curiosity and his way of seeing beauty and opportunity everywhere,” his son, Adam Max, said in a statement to ABC News.

The pop artist, whose dreamlike works in bold colors provided an artistic backdrop to the US hippie movement of the 1960s and made him a major figure in commercial art, died on Monday at a Manhattan hospital following a long illness.

Max’s imagery, often influenced by his passion for astronomy, was ubiquitous during the 1960s and 1970s and became part of the era’s youth culture. His work featured vibrant colors and surreal imagery, including cosmic landscapes and exploding stars, doves and floating peace symbols, kaleidoscopic butterflies, fluffy clouds and other motifs associated with the “flower power” movement.

Rock stars including Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger were among the subjects of Max’s portraits, as were some of his friends.

Former US President Ronald Reagan was an admirer of his work, and Max donated a painting of the Statue of Liberty to the Reagan Presidential Library.

In the late 1960s, Max stepped away from the spotlight, focusing on his private work and travel. He returned with an exhibition at a New York gallery in 1987 and once again became a major commercial force.

Max experimented with different artistic styles, with some of his later work taking on a more impressionistic character. His works included portraits of music stars, the Statue of Liberty, US presidents and world leaders, including a 40-piece series dedicated to then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

His art also extended far beyond traditional canvases. Max painted a Boeing 777 for Continental Airlines, a ship for Norwegian Cruise Line and a race car for NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt.

Several portraits of former US President Bill Clinton created by Max have been displayed at the Clinton Presidential Library. Clinton had previously expressed admiration for the artist’s work.

By the 2000s, Max’s New York studio employed more than 100 people and generated annual sales of between $80 million and $100 million. Many of his works were sold through auctions aboard cruise ships, according to The Times.

Photo: Chat GPT