It was a real downer for me to read Peter Max had passed. His psychedelic colors and instantly recognizable brushwork were huge in the 60’s, 70’s and beyond. Even the post office got involved with his cheerful, exuberant artwork, as witness the stamp pictured below, courtesy of Wikipedia. (And please go read the listing there for him – and while you’re at it, drop a fiver into their tip jar. Wiki is a tremendous resource for us all, as the founders intended.)
And now I shift to my premise for this blog: Henri Matisse must have been an influence on Peter Max. See my toothbrush mug in the first photo above, with its fantastic colors and pattern after pattern taken from an homage to Matisse. It’s always amazing to me that artists build on each others’ work, making it not only their own, but showing the path for the next artists struggling up that same mountainside.
So, dig it. Even if you and your art don’t seem to be significant – not heavy – you may be influencing the next group of artists, and your style and name will be preserved someday in an interview, or futuristic Wiki, or Tic Toc in the 2200’s. And that’s just cosmic, you know?
Matisse to the Max. – A.R. Tist