Died Ambassador of psychedelic pop art Peter Max // German-American artist Peter Max died in the United States at the age of 88 years

German-American artist Peter Max, famous for psychedelic works in the style of pop art, died in a hospital in Manhattan after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 88 years old. This was reported by his friend Michael Pagnotta, writes Rolling Stone.

Peter Max was born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1937. The family fled Nazi persecution in Shanghai, then lived in Israel and settled in Brooklyn in 1953. After high school, Max joined the Art Students League of New York. In the 1960s, he began a career in graphic design and created the "Be In" poster for the first major 1967 hippie festival in San Francisco. The U.S. government also hired an artist to design a series of “Welcome to the United States” signs that were installed at border crossings in 1978.

Peter Max was the official artist of the 2002 and 2006 Olympic Games, the 1994 FIFA World Cup. His work also adorned Continental Airlines’ Boeing 777 and Norwegian Cruise Line. The artist created portraits of Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney and the presidents of the United States. One of the largest projects was a series of paintings depicting the Statue of Liberty, painted at the White House at the invitation of First Lady Nancy Reagan in 1981.

In 1997, Mr. Max pleaded guilty to fraud after the IRS accused him of concealing the proceeds of selling his artworks worth more than $1 million. He was sentenced to two months in prison, but the court allowed him to serve his sentence under the work-release program. The artist paid a $30,000 fine and worked 800 hours of community service teaching art in Harlem schools.