'Kafka would blush': artist Peter Max caught in legal guardianship lawsuit

[Jilly_in_VA]

The daughter of a celebrated pop artist who created famous images of the “cosmic sixties” is suing the New York court system over what she claims are secretive communications between her father’s court-appointed guardian and judges that drastically affect his life and violate her basic rights.

Libra Max lodged a federal lawsuit on Wednesday in which she alleges that her father, Peter Max, 84, is being held in virtual isolation by a court-appointed guardian. She claims multiple judges have allowed the guardian to communicate with them behind closed doors, without the family’s knowledge, leading to one-sided decisions that profoundly affect his life and that constitute a gross distortion of justice.

The daughter of a celebrated pop artist who created famous images of the “cosmic sixties” is suing the New York court system over what she claims are secretive communications between her father’s court-appointed guardian and judges that drastically affect his life and violate her basic rights.

Libra Max lodged a federal lawsuit on Wednesday in which she alleges that her father, Peter Max, 84, is being held in virtual isolation by a court-appointed guardian. She claims multiple judges have allowed the guardian to communicate with them behind closed doors, without the family’s knowledge, leading to one-sided decisions that profoundly affect his life and that constitute a gross distortion of justice.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jul/20/kafka-would-blush-artist-peter-max-caught-in-legal-guardianship-lawsuit

Fcuking appalling

[madaboutharry]

1. The article doesn't disclose how he came under guardianship in the first place.

He has two children who one would think could manage his care.

The entire situation seems like a corrupt mess.

[FakeNoose]

2. Here's more of the story "Free Peter Max"

(link) https://www.freepetermax.com/

An Urgent Call to Save the Life of Peter Max

Peter Max – Pop Artist, 84-year-old devoted and loving father, loyal and compassionate friend, Holocaust survivor, animal and human rights advocate, and a victim of Alzheimer’s Disease – is being kept in forced isolation in a predatory guardianship in New York City. The guardianship has depleted his hard-earned life’s earnings by over $16 million, with millions being paid, without his permission, to the court-appointed guardians and attorneys who now control all aspects of his life.

Since 2019, Peter’s family and friends have been privately waging a legal battle to free Peter from his involuntary isolation at the hands of strangers; restore to him his dignity; and allow him to be surrounded by loved ones at the end of his life. After three years of isolation, Peter’s loved ones fear he is losing his will to live. His health has steeply declined; he appears dangerously over-medicated; and his family and friends fear for his life.

Peter is gentle, loving, and a deeply sensitive man. Everyone close to him knows that he thrives with companionship and suffers without it. Peter was born in Nazi Germany; he escaped with only his parents, with most of his family killed by the Nazis. He grew up as a refugee in Shanghai. The trauma and loss that Peter experienced at a young age has stayed with him throughout his life. Peter arrived in Brooklyn as a teenage immigrant with a hope for the American dream and a love for freedom. The beauty in his art was his answer to the war.

- more at link -

Peter Max is suffering from dementia and can no longer create any new artworks. The son Adam Max has been profiting from his father's illness by selling new "Peter Max artworks" that are not created by him. There's more to this story and it's part of a lawsuit against Adam Max.

[Boxerfan]

3. Sounds like the guardianship cares-a lot.

A take on the movie " I care a lot"

I hope the daughter wins

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The family's financial affairs look very complicated

2019:

Artist Peter Max allegedly siphoned over $4M from elderly relative

Famed pop artist Peter Max and his wife Mary — who committed suicide in June — allegedly siphoned $4.6 million in cash from their dementia-riddled relative, “Cousin Lou,” according to court papers.
...
Ricki Reisner said her dad, Louis Gottlieb, was so ill in the years before his January 2015 death at age 90 he didn’t realize the Maxes were taking advantage of him — sometimes writing more than one hefty check to them a day, she says in a Manhattan Supreme Court claim.

Gottlieb ran a successful construction business before moving into money management, carefully investing the bulk of his cash in bonds for years.
...
The Maxes got Gottlieb to write them more than 30 checks in less than two years, Reisner charges.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/28/artist-peter-max-allegedly-siphoned-over-4m-from-elderly-relative/

2021:

Family members of ailing Pop Art icon Peter Max are calling for an end to a court-appointed guardianship they say controls “all aspects of his life.”
...
Libra Max filed a petition against her brother, Adam Max — who shares ownership of their father’s art company with her — in 2017.

Adam Max, meanwhile, accused his sister in 2019 of a hostile takeover of the company.

His name is conspicuously absent from the letter calling for an end to the guardianship. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220405042542/https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-peter-max-artist-guardianship-family-alzheimers-20210927-c646qnhj3namfjvj4fgnnc4ndi-story.html

I can't find a report of what has happened in the Gottlieb case. But if the Maxes were accused of getting money (ironically, from someone with dementia) they shouldn't have, that might explain why guardians from outside the family are involved.