THE CROWD:Meet the man behind a movement

It’s 3 p.m. in New York City and Peter Max is on his cellphone sitting in his car in afternoon traffic. The buzz and rush of Manhattan serve as a backdrop to this telephone interview with an artist, who, more than any other, has become the visual interpreter of the Love Generation.

Max, born in Berlin in 1937 at the dawn of Hitler’s rise, escaped the chaos of World War II in Europe and was raised in Shanghai. His father Jacob ran a department store.

Today, his art and related creative and commercial products might be found in department stores, as well as galleries, gift shops and Internet sites. Peter Max is big business.

He is also bigger than life, much like his vivid canvas portrayals such as “One Hundred Clintons,” “Fifty Gorbys,” “Statue of Liberty” and “Flag with Heart” that have contributed to his international reputation.

The artist will make a personal appearance Friday at the Wentworth Gallery in Laguna Beach and Saturday, also at the Wentworth in Fashion Island. He agreed to this exclusive phone interview for the Daily Pilot.

It is interesting to note that few artists of Max’s renown take time to visit with clients and collectors in galleries around the nation. At 69, with a celebrity reputation and a business that employs 105 staffers generating income in the millions, you might think Max would be content to let the collectors come to him.

This is not the essence of the artist.

Max is nothing if not a man of the people. Inspired as a child by the ancient Buddhist world of Shanghai, Max discovered art as his personal avenue to creative expression. His family moved to Israel, and then to Paris for a six-month stay where Max enrolled in art school. He was 16, and he knew art would be his life.

From Paris to New York, the family would arrive in America in the mid 1950s. Max would pursue his art studies at the Art Student’s League. It was there that his own style of contemporary realism would find its basis. The rest is art history.

He would arrive on the art scene at a time when realism and graphic design were the new rage. His art was “commercial” from the start. Book jackets, album covers, magazines, illustrations and photo collages of the modern world put Max on the culture radar.

The 1960s arrived and so did Max — big time.

The cultural and social revolution of the era was the ideal canvas for this young man who created “cosmic art.” It has been referred to as the “Peter Max Culture.” Life Magazine put him on the cover. There was no stopping him. National TV followed. “The Ed Sullivan Show,” more magazines, features in the New York Times, more fame.

“Nobody gets that kind of media,” said the artist from his car. “It was foreign to me. I didn’t handle it properly. I just wasn’t savvy.”

Forty years later, he is savvy. He is also spiritual.

His spiritual journey evolved right alongside his career as an artist. In the late 1960s, Max met Swami Satchidananda in Paris. The Indian yoga master changed his life course. This sea change became evident in the transcendental imagery that infused his work.

As the 1960s gave way to the disco era, Max steered away from his more commercial pursuits and focused on serious painting.

“I paint or draw everyday, and I’ve done so for the last 35 years,” Max said. “The canvas is my playground.”

His greatest inspiration remains a love of life. Max quotes a familiar yoga expression, “Love all — serve all.”

“I say that at least 20 times a day,” he said, adding, “I take nothing for granted — absolutely nothing — and I never do. While I do not get political in my work, my work is about finding peace and harmony on the planet.”

Max says that his art has evolved. It has taken him decades to refine his skill. When he gazes at one of his large 4-by-5-foot canvases, Max just “lets it happen.”

“I know what I don’t know,” he said. A hundred “years from now, I believe my art will speak about what I stood for — about who we were.

“The harsh realities of the planet demand our attention.”

Meet the artist, who rose from “The Ed Sullivan Show” to American icon, at the Wentworth Gallery this weekend. For more information, call the Wentworth Laguna at (949) 376-3878 or Newport Beach at (949) 760-9554.