I love La Jolla. A real beautiful place. If, like, I had a place to live in California, I probably would choose La Jolla … I usually come in for a day or two to do my artwork, and that’s all I have time for. But I love just walking around [the] beautiful streets, the cafes it’s just like a perfect place to visit.”
Peter Max, iconic psychedelic artist of the “Summer of Love,” returns to Wentworth Gallery for a standing ovation of sorts this week, on Friday, Aug. 3 and Saturday, Aug. 4, for a retrospective featuring 300 paintings, drawings and limited-edition prints. The last time Max visited La Jolla in 2005, lines of fans spilled into the street.
Forty years earlier, the then-23-year-old art student made the cover of Life magazine in 1966. Other covers of Life that year included fresh new personalities such as Dustin Hoffman, musician Tiny Tim and astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Three years later, Aldrin landed on the moon and Max was selling 7 million posters a year.
“Those posters were like MTV to the youth market at that time,” he said.
Since then he’s had nearly 100 museum shows and attends about 30 gallery openings a year.
Max’s work has been imitated by so many artists that it’s a wonder he hasn’t felt compelled to alter his approach.
“No, no,” Max said. “You know, I’m a yogi, I study yoga and do the breathing and all of that stuff. I try and look at everything from a positive side, even if it’s not the most positive thing … I never felt competition from anybody. If anything I’m honored because they love the work.”
In 1967, the Beatles’ feature-length animation, “Yellow Submarine,” was released worldwide, and the artwork was so distinctive that millions thought Max was the creator of Pepperland, the Blue Meanies and the rest. However, his name was nowhere in the credits.
“They wanted me to direct the film,” he said. “I never directed it, but John Lennon and I became good friends. I met John through Yoko, who by the way is an amazing conceptual artist. I was good friends with her, and one day she calls me up and everybody in the world knew that Yoko Ono was with John, right? And she says to me, ‘Hello Peter, did you hear?’ And I said, ‘Are you kidding me, who hasn’t heard?’ It was like an amazing moment, you know?”
After he’d known Lennon for a few months, they went walking in Central Park, and Lennon told Max about the “fantastic project” the Beatles were getting ready to do. Just one problem: none of the Beatles liked the artistic animation style that had been recommended, so Lennon asked if Max would direct it.
But by the time they raised the money, Max’s art had exploded and he was far too busy to take on another project. So he recommended Hans Adelman, the “German Peter Max.”
“You know he had his own style, but he tried to look like mine a little bit,” Max said. “So they went to see Hans and he got the job. In a way, I was proud because I got to lend a hand in the direction it should go to. But I didn’t have time to do it.”
Although Max was one of the pioneers of so-called psychedelic art, he started his career as a realist. It was only by chance that an art director at an ad agency happened to see some of Max’s “comic book-like space object” doodles at the bottom of his portfolio.
“Next thing I know, he called over about 14 art directors, and every single art director gave me a project to do,” Max said. “I’d been out of art school for about three and a half months and hadn’t seen one dollar. Suddenly I walked out with 14 art projects … so really my world changed.”
Max has been designated the official artist for NASA’s 50th anniversary, and was the official artist for the 2006 U.S. Winter Olympic Team, three World Fairs, six Super Bowls and six Grammy Award broadcasts. He has painted portraits of numerous world leaders, including the last six U.S. Presidents, the Dalai Lama and Mikhail Gorbachev. His next effort will be a series of posters for Al Gore and his green projects, such as the effort to curtail global warming.
Max will appear from 6 to 9 p.m. Aug. 3 and 4 at Wentworth Gallery, 1025 Prospect St. For more information, call (858) 551-7071.