Cover Story

Peter Max: The Real Life of a World Class Painter
by Allan Hartley


Max has painted a veritable list of who's who in music, government, and sports. His paintings are on exhibit in galleries worldwide. He is known as the preeminent Pop artist in America. Max has been successively called a Pop Icon, Neo Fauvist, Abstract Expressionist, and the United States' "Painter Laureate."

Peter Max reminds me of the younger men who were involved in the counter-culture of the 60s. They later grew older and accepted positions in the establishment. Or like Peter Max they created their own positions. Recently I had the opportunity of learning something about this. He seems to have been able to retain his early values while working within the system.

As I learned from talking to him recently, his life story is his art. Sometimes though, his personal story leads and other times his art does, and yet again there is very little demarcation as we discover from learning more about motivates him.

For years I would hear stories from the yogis and yoginis at the Integral Yoga Institute about the artist, Peter Max, who was instrumental in bringing their guru, or master, Swami Satchidananda to this country. The story is always told with delight and gratitude.

Thirty-five years after I first started hearing about this man, I was able to interrupt his busy schedule (he employs 105 people in a studio on Riverside in New York City) for several hours when we talked on the phone--coast to coast. 

The first thing I found out about Max, to add to his other talents, is that he is a great story teller.

Some of the stories he told me are in the book, The Art of Peter Max , but they were strung out much longer on the phone because of interruptions and because we both had this common interest in Swamiji, vegetarianism, and eastern philosophy.

By the end of the conversation we were yogi-bros. I could tell immediately how much he loved his work, his life, and all the twists and turns it took to get him to where he is today. Yes, and one more thing to add, besides a story teller he is definitely a philosopher.

Reading his book The Art of Peter Max and admiring his art work in it I kept thinking I would like to know how he paints. The psychedelic, the collages, and portraits are beautiful and inspired, but how does it happen.

I read on and learned about this. But I really got it when I talked to him. The story he told me on how he met Swami Satchidananda began with him doing a collage.

The elements that moved the creation of art and the meeting of the spiritual man was his curiosity about the universe, experimentation, trial and error, a serendipitous meeting, and even a vision.

This is the way he told it to me. His enthusiasm, humor, and the way he marvels at his own adventures and the people he has met along the way bring color to his stories. I don't mean in a braggadocios way. No-- it is with a realization of just how fortunate he has been and appreciative of how life has treated him.

He started with, "Because I had knowledge of astronomy, one day I decided to call Mt. Palomar Observatory in California, and got a whole bunch of photographs from them. I was going to make them in a collage of what the universe would be like."

He mentions that at this time he was already a fairly successful young artist--"although I am a hundred times more successful now." He said, "Even with this success, I never in my life thought I would sell things every two days, and have people coming to me to do things."

"So I thought to myself if I make a nice collage and spend a couple of days on it maybe I'll get an insight on why the universe is what it is. I was going to have planets orbiting other planets--a grandiose depiction with galaxies--organize it in a nice fashion. And maybe if I go on up a ladder, way up near the ceiling, and look down on a 5 x 5 ft table something will inspire me to get an insight about what it is really all about."

After working on it for several days, he set up a folding ladder near the table. He is six or seven feet above the table looking down on his collage.

It is now about 2 a.m. "I am gazing, I'm squinting, I'm breathing--I'm looking at it a hundred different ways and all I see is my collage. I don't see anything I thought I would see that would give me a big ahaa!

"Even though I organized it beautifully, I was so disappointed that I couldn't see anything from this collage. I couldn't see anything to give me any insight as to what it is all about--that I climbed off the ladder. It is now 2:30 in the morning and I lifted my hands up to the ceiling in this small room where I worked. I was going to scream out to god--like why?-- give me a clue, at least!   Suddenly as my voice is going to come out I realize my one and a half year old baby boy is right next door.   So, instead, I did, like a holler without any sound coming out. "

"As I did this with my hands up and eyes closed, but looking up at the ceiling, between my eyes I see a white bearded holy man patting me on the head and saying, 'It's OK.' And it was overwhelming how real it was. There was nobody in the room; it was just a vision or something. I bring my hands down. There was a cloud that opened between my arms, but my eyes were closed." He was like the white haired wizards in the old movie "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves."

"I made nothing of it, except it was very satisfying--but I still didn't get an answer. I'm staying kind of bewildered with what I felt, what I saw and didn't get an answer to my collage. And the phone rings--it's now 2:30, 2:40. Who could be calling me this late at night?"

 "I answered the phone and the guy says to me, 'Is this Peter Max?' And I say, "Who is calling?" He hears, "My name is Conrad Rooks."

"I said it is 2:30 in the morning. Rooks says, 'I'm so sorry. I am calling from Paris. Later I find out that Conrad Rooks was the heir of the Avon Cosmetics and he had an inheritance of, back then, of 4.5 million a year.

"He said, he is making a movie and somebody has given him a little collage of mine and that I would be the guy who could add an earnest feeling of color and where we are today in the 60s. In other words, I had the touch. I kind of knew what he meant, but I didn't know whether I believed him or I didn't know how he would know. I didn't even believe it myself yet. I didn't think I was that well known, but somebody who worked on his set told him--call up this artist in New York--maybe you will bring him in and he will help you get the right colors, the right feel to the film.

"So I asked him what the film is about. You know what he says to me? He says, 'It's about the meaning of life.'

"I was blown away! I just couldn't believe it. So he said to me, will you come to Paris tomorrow?

Max didn't go to Paris, then, but Rooks with the poets Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs, was soon at his door. It all happened very fast and with synchronicity. He was in Paris a week later. His first meeting with Swami Satchidananda was in a hotel restaurant.

"I look at his beautiful eyes and I'm totally, like, my heart is beating. He is so calm, so sweet in his personality. Such a sweet gentle, loving face--that I had really seldom seen. I saw, sometimes, faces like that when I was a child in Tibet--and when we drove through India, but not quite like this particular human being."

Later that day Max, along with Rooks and Satchidananda went to a small theater close by to see the rushes from the previous day's shooting. The film was called Chappaqua from the city where Rooks grew up.

"We are watching the film. The camera moves in toward a tree and underneath near a big tree trunk I see a person there--the yogi who is sitting next to me. I didn't even know he was a yogi. He is chanting: 'Om Shanti, Om Shanthi, Om Shanthi.'"

Max recognized that America in those days was in need of such a thing as yoga. He extended an invitation to the swami to visit New York. The strong interest aroused by the swami and his teaching led to the foundation, soon after, of the Integral Yoga Institute . . . .1. Today Swami Satchidananda is no longer with us but the Institute is housed on the beautiful grounds of Yogaville in Virginia.

I learned that Max had a home in the 60s, in Woodstock, a few miles from where Bob Dylan lived. He painted a barn there that became famous as the "pink barn" on the cover of a Crosby, Stills, and Nash album.

I observed, "How serendipitous!"   He reminisced, "You know the mystery of life is so interconnected. You know one thing for sure, no matter how we look at it--it is a billion times more connected than I am connected. It's about who you meet in life, who you talk to, who you fall in love with, even who you live with--it's all pretty awesome."

I mentioned that when you get older you can look back on your life and see all this and the connections, you couldn't see otherwise.

Introducing a new subject, I said, "I saw in the Abrams book, The Art of Peter Max , that you are involved in public art work. I want to know about the personal man, the private man, the man behind the paintings. Reading more into the book I found that you express your private and personal through your work. How do you see that?"

"Luckily the media comes almost by itself. Everyday, all the media, including TV and Radio stations present themselves. But when I talk about the stuff I have to talk about, I love and am passionate about--it's all the stuff that you and are talking about.

"When I am in middle America I sometimes have to trim it down. You know what I mean? I don't talk much about brown rice. But in real life, this is all I think about, this is what I love."

I want to know if Eastern philosophy has had a big influence on him. He says, "It really did. It's such a nice and neutral philosophy. And it's not so much of a religion--you know what I mean? It's very lovely."

I wanted to know more about how all these elements in his life work together. It seems like Max is an initiator. When he sees a need he steps right up to the challenge--like Satchidananda, the other was the Statue of Liberty. There are a number of other projects.

"Well it comes to me and it like tucks at me. To do a painting is harder than to make a phone call, right? Here is an example. I consider meeting Swami Satchidananda, and my part in his coming to America, meant so much to me and I am the most proud of.

The Statue of Liberty was falling apart and I was painting a Statue of Liberty every year. I was with Nancy and Ronal Reagan, Michael Deaver, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger--all these unbelievable people. I was with them for two days. It was very invigorating, stimulating to meet people who loved my work. I was still buzzed about it for two days.

"I am in my studio on Riverside Drive doing some flower paintings, just enjoying the day, at peace. I'm away from all these people and have to create these gigantic paintings and enjoying the aftermath.

"The doorbell rings--and it's my lobby." The doorman says that it's a young man named Bill Grace. "I said, Put him on the phone."

"Bill Grace thought I was an assistant to Peter Max. He said to the assistant, which was really me, "Tell Peter Max, I love his work. I love the Statue of Liberty and I'm a patriot" I said, "Come on up."

It turns out that Bill Grace is a teacher at Hunter College and he is a Statue of Liberty buff and thinks it tragic that a national treasure is falling apart. He saw Max on TV with Nancy and Ronald Reagan and also with Jimmy Carter.

He thinks that if there is anyone who can do something about the shape the Statue of Liberty is in it is Max. He came armed with a portfolio of pictures indicating the disrepair--bolts missing, rust dripping, and obscenities carved on the stairwell.

Max, flabbergasted, says, "It's enormous, enormous, I wouldn't even know where to go!"

"I couldn't wait for him to leave. I think to myself, this is crazy. I gotta go get the Statue of Liberty renovated   and I wouldn't even know where or how to begin. This is bigger than life. But a part of me says, 'This is a godsend.' The next thing I know I am dialing the phone number to the White House.

    Max reached Carol McCain, Nancy Reagan's press secretary who then gave the phone to Mrs. Reagan. While Nancy Reagan was praising his work, he spent a few awkward moments not knowing what to say. So, he said, "Mrs. Reagan, the Statue of Liberty is falling apart--there is rust dripping, bolts missing, and carved obscenities on the stairwell. And in five years she is going to be 100 years old."

He wanted her to help find someone in her circle to hold a fund raiser. He still felt awkward and embarrassed. He didn't want to seem like he was asking her for money. After the phone call he picked up his brushes and started painting again, all the while feeling foolish.

This was soon over because the phone rang and it was Michael Deaver, Ronald Reagan's press secretary. He of course, begins by telling Max how much he enjoyed the exhibit put on at the White House the week-end before. He ends the conversation by telling him he should go to the private sector for money.

Max turns on the TV and sees a news story about how Lee Iacoca saved Chrysler from bankruptcy. It immediately came to him.

He says to himself, "My god, private sector. If anybody is the right guy--like when I paint and pick out the right color for the next moment--right! Here was the next right color for the big painting. I pick up the phone and call my buddy I know from an advertising agency."

He is put in touch with Lee Iacoca and he loves the idea of the project. "I am beyond belief, surprised, shocked that little Peter--like I'm a little artist, that I could even get people of that magnitude interested."

Twenty days later Lee Iacoca was being sworn in by Ronald Reagan to be the chairman of the renovation committee of the Statue of Liberty. He went on to raise 300 million dollars in the next three months.

"It's like when a painter stands before an easel, the best place to be is to have nothing on the mind. The painting wants to happen. And somehow you get guided into the colors. That's how it happens for me.

"Sometimes it stays an abstraction and sometimes it looks like something. It could be a flower pot, a flower, but it's nice to keep it as a composition as long as you can--like an abstract painting. Keep it more as a composition rather than a finish, then the finish comes later. But if you start right away with the figure then you are doodling."

"Is that your style?"

"Well, I discovered that's a method that works for me, very well. When I was much younger I started with the first drawing and then I had to draw all around it. I couldn't be free. I had to fill up the spots."

"You let the composition guide you. It's like you meet the painting half way. It's an amazing place to be. Who would ever thought--you can meet a friend half way, or an acquaintance   half-way, but to meet a painting half-way! But, that's how it works." Max emphatically agrees.

"It seems like the 60s paintings you did were almost anti-establishment and then they got really patriotic. What's that all about?"

"The patriotic? Yah! The patriotic may have looked anti-establishment, but it is what we wanted the establishment to be. The establishment really, is just what it was and what we wanted patriotic to be."

"I wouldn't know what that was if it wasn't for Swami Satchidananda and all those sweet wonderful yogic souls that were in my life. It became a group effort   and maybe I was the mouthpiece." He came around at the right time, too. "Many times when I would speak on something's behalf, I would almost speak on the behalf of   a whole group of friends where we would all have similar thoughts."

But you came with these drawings and paintings of Hendrix and all these people, but you put the right take on it so the establishment people could accept it as well. So you were in the middle of the two factions and you were accepted by both--right?

"Yah! That's amazing isn't it? It is because I gave it nice colors. I made it nice looking and I wasn't revolutionary about it." He said it was like the sanscrit, sattvic which means pleasant or in spices it is the middle--not to hot or dull. "I was gentle. I never pushed too hard.

He isn't just talking. He has been a vegan for six years--before that a vegetarian, and also a macrobiotic.

Max, his wife Mary, daughter Libra, and son Adam are all animal rights activists.   He says, "1,200 times a year we say yes--and I would say a third is animal related--animal shelters, everything you can imagine including adoption centers.

Another third is ecological and the other one is like children and medicine. We give art and we give money"

Talking about his vegetarian lifestyle and his charity work reminded him of a good friend of his--John Mackey, the founder and president of Whole Foods. He has a great deal of admiration for this man.

"Yes, he is a vegan. He became a vegan when the animal rights people went to him and stated their case.   He said you are right, I'm becoming a vegan. But he can't change his whole store to veganism because he'd have to close up."

Max told about how his friend went to all the farmers who supply his eggs and told them that he wants their chickens to be free range. All the suppliers agreed to his wishes for his 300 stores. Max referred to him as a saint.

Max told how he travels frequently to other cities and he stops in at a Whole Foods Market wherever he is, even just to get snacks.

He remarked how Mackey has even disabled people working at the check out counters. Max says that Mackey isn't trying to be recognized--he is just doing his job. "He is just an intelligent guy who hears about what is right and acts on it." He is also impressed with his own physical fitness program. Max claims Mackey hikes 30 miles every month and once a year he hikes 2,100 miles which takes him months.

I learned from talking to Max not to take people at face value, that is, what they are showing the public. I found in our short conversation a man with a heart and real compassion for his fellow man, his country, nature, and the animals who live here with us. He continues to use the phrase or mantra that came from Swami Satchidananda many years ago. "Love all, serve all."

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1. Charles A. Riley, The Art of Peter Max ,