Peter Max Sunset Reeds III

Title: Peter Max Original Sunset Reeds III 1997 Signed Acrylic on Canvas Painting
Price: $13,350

Artist: Peter Max
Title: Sunset Reeds III
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 16” x 20” canvas
Year: 1997
Inscription: Signed “Max” at the lower right
Documentation: Includes a Gallery Certificate of Authenticity
Peter Max Studio Registration Number: 35953
Condition: Perfect

Peter Max’s Sunset Reeds III (1997) demonstrates the artist’s later engagement with landscape through expressive brushwork and saturated color. The composition is organized around broad, gestural passages of color that suggest a waterside landscape at sunset without adhering to conventional naturalistic representation. Bands of vivid red, orange, turquoise, blue, violet, yellow, and pink move across the canvas, creating a dynamic relationship between the atmospheric sky, distant landscape, and reflective water.

Several vertical forms in the lower central portion of the composition evoke reeds or grasses, providing a structural counterpoint to the predominantly horizontal movement of the surrounding brushwork. Max uses overlapping strokes and varied mark-making to create distinctions between foreground, water, and sky while maintaining an intentionally flattened pictorial space. The saturated palette and visible traces of the brush emphasize the physical act of painting, while the simplified landscape remains recognizable through a limited number of suggestive forms.

Created during the later decades of Max’s career, Sunset Reeds III reflects his continued exploration of color, gesture, and recognizable imagery beyond the psychedelic visual vocabulary with which his earlier work is most closely associated.

The canvas measures 16 x 20 inches and is presented in a 17 1/4 x 21 1/4-inch frame. The painting is signed “Max” at the lower right, stamped “PETER MAX 1997” on the verso, and bears the handwritten studio inventory number 35953. It comes from a related group of four 1997 Peter Max paintings bearing consecutive studio inventory numbers 35952–35955 and is accompanied by a Gallery Certificate of Authenticity.

About Peter Max

Peter Max (American, b. 1937) is best known for his vibrant paintings, limited-edition prints, posters, and graphic works associated with Pop Art and the psychedelic visual culture of the 1960s. Born in Berlin, Max spent his early childhood in Shanghai before later settling in New York.

Max established his signature style during the 1960s, combining saturated colors, strong black outlines, stylized figures, and cosmic imagery inspired by astronomy and the emerging fascination with space exploration. His Cosmic ’60s artwork became closely identified with the era’s psychedelic art movement and appeared across posters, magazines, and other popular media. These works helped blur the boundaries between fine art, illustration, graphic design, and contemporary popular culture.

While Max is most strongly associated with his 1960s imagery, his career developed through several distinct periods. His later paintings became increasingly expressive, incorporating spontaneous brushwork, abstraction, portraiture, landscapes, and recurring American subjects. His depictions of the Statue of Liberty became an especially recognizable element of his later work.

His paintings, serigraphs, lithographs, and other graphic prints continue to attract interest from collectors of American Pop Art and 20th-century contemporary art, reflecting the enduring influence of his distinctive visual language.