In 1961, Peter Max started a graphic design studio and found almost overnight success. Throughout the sixties, Max developed his signature “psychedelic” style expressed through posters, advertising, and his graphic works. This placed Max at the center of the youth movement and the cultural revolution. He was featured on The Tonight Show and on the cover of LIFE Magazine. His posters were on the walls of every college dorm-room, and he had become an iconic artist and designer.

For most of the 1970s, Max intensely focused on painting., He took himself off the radar for almost 18 years. Throughout the ‘70s Max was the subject of an exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco “The World of Peter Max.” He was also commissioned by the U.S. Post Office to make the first ever environmental 10 cent stamp, commemorating the 1974 World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington. In 1976, he worked with Lee Iacocca of Chrysler to save the Statue of Liberty, creating a series that generated enough funding to restore the desperately worn landmark.

His style changed during this 18 year retreat, adapting his technique to the paint rather than a graphic medium. His palette became softer and more diverse and his strokes became broader and more textured. Thematically, he began to develop new imagery, like The Dega Man, Zero Megalopolis, and The Umbrella Man. American icons, especially the Statue of Liberty, appeared over and over in his works and, by the time he returned to the public scene in the ‘80s,