Peter Max

Peter Max
Charles, Prince of Wales
1969
colored inks and collage on board
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Peter Max
Love
1967
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Man Must Moon
1969
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
A Beautiful Summer Day
With the NBC Owned Television Stations
1970
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Police Dept.
ca. 1970
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
123 Infinity
ca. 1968
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Happy People Don't Smoke Cigarettes
American Cancer Society
ca. 1970
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Ben Turpin Cameo
1967
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
John Lindsay
1969
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Jazzmobile
1967
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Outer Space
1967
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
The Book of Posters
1971
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
The World of Peter Max
1970
lithograph (exhibition poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Peter Max - Magit Gallery
1980
lithograph (exhibition poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Peter Max - Muirhead Galleries
1977
lithograph (exhibition poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
Peace Corps
1970
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Peter Max
10 Siblings
1967
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

from Tristia

[Packing for exile]

When night falls here, I think of that other night

        when the shadow fell once and for all and I

was cast out of the light into this endless gloom.

        Twilight here calls forth from certain birds

a kind of mournful twitter, but silent tears from me

        as I think of how it was that night in the city.

The nimble hours skittered, turning us all clumsy

        and the simplest menial task onerous. Packing

was either a nightmare itself or one of those cruel jokes

        you sometimes find in your worst dreams. Papers

hid and even after we'd found them refused to stay put.

        We blamed ourselves for having wasted time

trying to talk it out and ourselves into understanding

        what was going on, and not to impose

what we were feeling. I'd made lists of clothing, equipment . . .

        But who had the composure? And pitiless time

nudged us along, forcing our minds to these cruel questions.

        Or was it perhaps a mercy? We managed to laugh

once or twice, as my wife found in some old trunk

        odd pieces of clothing. "This might be

just the thing this season, the new Romanian mode . . ."

        And just as abruptly our peal of laughter would catch

and tear into tears as she dropped the preposterous shepherd's cloak    

        and we held each other. On drill, like a legion,

the minutes passed, each of them bearing Caesar's blazon,

        advancing by so much the terrible deadline.

It wasn't the fall of Troy, but what we all dread

        as we read of the fall of Troy, whatever the scale

by which we figure grief, investing in those old figures 

        what our approximate hearts have learned to feel.

– Ovid (43 BC-AD 17), translated by David R. Slavitt (1999)