"Barefoot and surrounded by puffy clouds and chubby birds, the jumper appeared on the
10-cent stamp commissioned for Expo ’74, the conservation-themed World’s Fair in Seattle. In 'The Universe of Peter Max,' a memoir published in 2013, he wrote: 'My cosmic art subjects were always euphoric: Himalayan sages levitating under a shower of flowers beside snowcapped mountain peaks; faces and flowers exploding into a symmetrical cosmic butterfly; mirrored lakes and waters with a cascade of stars and planets; flowers in perpetual states of organic growth, begetting blossoms. My inspiration came from the new youth movement in America and in return spoke to it.'"
From
"Peter Max, Trippy Artist of Counterculture Era and Beyond, Dies at 88/With work that breathed the spirit of the 1960s, he became fabulously wealthy from licensing his paintings and posters in all their euphoric Day-Glo glory" (NYT gift link).
Things were so much more colorful when we were young in the 60s, and Peter Max was a big part of it.
Look around at all the gray, white, and black and remember when everything was over-the-top colorful. Mourn the loss of everything that was Peter Max. RIP.
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Between him and Thomas Kinkaid, they filled the art galleries of cruise ships everywhere, and if you would like to have free champagne, you can attend the auction to buy your own print of their work.
The 1974 10-cent stamp you say. I wonder how many you would need to send a letter today? I wonder what the price of a first-class stamp is nowadays. Wow, its been a long time since I mailed a letter. They used to help you out with how much it cost by putting the price right on the stamp. They don't do that anymore. Remember when stamps had prices on them? I remember ... just barely. Remember when you had to buy some 1-cent stamps to add to the regular stamp when they raised the price? I think I remember, but I'm nut sure. It may be a false memory.
In case you were wondering, the Post Office introduced the "Forever Stamp" in 2007. So now I don't feel so bad that I can barely remember when stamps had prices on them.
I remember copying him in first grade. Of course I didn’t know it was him then. I just really liked the colorful style, the bright magenta and orange, the movement implied in the people. Simultaneously to this was a new environmental awareness that at the time we called the “ecology movement.”
That’s a cooler name than “environmentalism.” At the time ecology didn’t seem like an **ism** but it was the precursor.
Expo 74 was in Spokane, not Seattle! I went to it. I was 10. It made quite an impression on me. It was a very 1970s experience.
I recall going to the world's Fair in 1974. I don't remember Peter Max but I remember the introduction of IMAX and I specially build IMAX theater. It all took place in Spokane, not Seattle.
I agree that it was cool at the time, but if it were still going on, I have to think that it would be a bit cloying..
I was more of a Leroy Neiman fan of the brightly colored illustration genre of the day.
Black or earthy neutrals make up the fashionable color palette today. And they are boring. Bring on the color!
Leningrad 1991: you could feel the end was near when Peter Max got a show at the Hermitage.
You have to remember him in the 60s, not the later monetization. And it wasn't just him. It was all the mod clothing and decorations, The Beatles and "Yellow Submarine" — so much color. Everything is so drained of color now. It's gloomy!
I thought contemporary art remained colorful based on my last visit to MassMOCA, then I realized that the below work started in the 60's, proving Althouse right. Perhaps the bright colors were inspired by the popular availability of color TV.
Sol Lewitt at MassMOCA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock#/media/File:Woodstock_poster.jpg
Far out, Man.
Made the cover of Life in ‘69 for “best porn ‘stache of the year”.
I greatly agree that the lack of color today is a depressing reality. Long live colors!
"His 'cosmic jumper,' a young man in bell bottoms traversing the globe in giant strides, became an emblem of modern youth …”
Yeah, that was us Boomers — a long time ago.
What happened to all the color in movies and TV?
As noted, it was Spokane and I had a season pass. There were fireworks every night at closing time and one time I watched them from the South Hill while I was at Sacred Heart having my tonsils removed.
Looks like they fixed it:
" Barefoot and surrounded by puffy clouds and chubby birds, the jumper appeared on the 10-cent stamp commissioned for Expo ’74, the conservation-themed World’s Fair in Spokane."
For magazines, we had Mad and the adults had Life.
From the obit, it seems he went full King Lear in his last days. But he certainly was upbeat in his younger days, and there are no dark shadows in his works. That's not to say there were no dark shadows. They were lurking just beyond the frame.
I saw a graphic the other day that tracked the number of hit songs over time that were either in a major or minor key, not sure which year the trends crossed, but popular music went from predominantly major keys in the sixties to predominantly minor today.
Look at any picture of a crowded freeway in the 1970-80 time frame, and compare it to one from today. The spectrum of paint colors on the cars is less than half of what it used to be. I haven't seen an orange, bright green, purple, or yellow car in months, at least, and even bright blue and red are les common than white, black, tan and gray. They even have a dingy flat gray called "Cement" now that my son intends to get when he buys his next car. I told him, We had that color too, in my day - we called it "primer".
I built a new house and my wife insisted on the same subdued color palette of black, gray, white, and FDE tan. Very boring to my eye but at the end of the day I don't really care about colors as long as my wife is happy. I just told her, don't come back to me in six or eight years and insist on ripping out your stark white kitchen and replacing it with 60's turquoise, 70's earth tones, 80's neon, 90's chrome and glass, 2000's Brazilian Cherrywood, or whatever is inexplicably back in fashion....
Life shows what it values in the subtitle, "Portrait of the Artist as Very Rich Man."
"Cosmic Jumper" owes a little to the "Keep on Truckin'" guy.
Is life very colorful? Maybe we rely on posters and billboards to give it more color, and as poster art has declined, the world has grown less colorful.
Those of us who remember the colors of the 1960s and 70s really miss that sometimes. I've noticed that some film restorers have picked up on that and some of the restorations of black and white films are much more colorful now. I think that we hit rock bottom a few years ago with car colors.
Top Car Colors in the U.S.:
White: ~26% of vehicles
Black: ~21% to 22% of vehicles
Gray: ~18% to 19% of vehicles
Silver: ~10% to 14% of vehicles
Blue: ~9% of vehicles
Red: ~7% of vehicles
(and the blues and reds are dark blues and reds.)
*Expo 74 was in Spokane, not Seattle! *
Exactly.
The greyish, "putty" colors (including dull light blue and dull pale green) voguish on cars now were discussed here a while back. I thought there was something modest and Puritanical about the colors, but they actually were first introduced in luxury models as an alternative to the usual colors. People choosing those colors are trying to keep up with the rich folks.
I'm seeing more VW bugs, old and new, now, so maybe the old colors are coming back. Still, everybody who remembers the crazy colored and pattered clothes of the 1970s may not be welcoming the revival.
Peter Max, Doug Henning.
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