September 17, 2026.   To the Max.

The artist Peter Max died the other day. He was 88.

Max was a pop artist, and while I’ve never been a pop art fan, I have a soft spot for a couple of his projects.

First is the travel poster he designed for Pan Am in 1969, celebrating its launch of the 747. It’s hard to tell what’s going on in the picture. Max described his 747 as “being watched over by the Great Spirit and an angel.” To me it’s giving late 60s Saturday morning cartoons and breakfast cereal.

Much later, in 1999, as part of New York City’s millennium celebration, Max was commissioned to paint a Continental Airlines 777. The livery he came up with — a sort of psychedelic rainbow melange — is one of the best novelty liveries we’ve ever seen.

The Continental project reminds us of the planes that Alexander Calder did for Braniff in the 1970s, including a flag-motif 727 for the U.S. bicentennial. Unless I’m mistaken, Max and Calder are the only commercial artists commissioned to paint commercial jetliners. I’m thinking we could use more.