Pop-Art Icon Peter Max’s Daughter Files New Suit Calling His Guardianship ‘Inhumane’

 by Tatiana Siegel
The new filing is the latest in a series of ongoing efforts by Libra Max to have more say in her 84-year-old father’s care as he suffers the effects of Alzheimer’s-related dementia


As his Alzheimer’s-related dementia has progressed, a series of legal battles surrounding Max’s care — marked by familial infighting, numerous challenges to the guardianship, suits and countersuits — have escalated. In the latest of these lawsuits, filed Tuesday in New York State, Libra, 55, alleges that Max’s current court-appointed guardian has, among other things, inflicted severe emotional distress on Libra by isolating Max from family and friends and withholding information about Max’s health from Libra. The suit also alleges that Max’s guardian has lied to the court in the guardianship case.

“My father should never have been put into a guardianship in the first place, and he should not be in one now,” Libra tells Rolling Stone. “[He] has a loving daughter, me, and he has been begging for me to come care for him, just as my father did for his own father. It is our family culture to care for our own.”

The recent drama began in the months leading up to Lang’s 2019 visit, when Max’s second wife, animal rights activist Mary Balkin, petitioned a New York court to install a new guardian. On June 9, 2019, the New York Times published an exposé about how Max’s dementia was allegedly being exploited by his business associates for financial gain. (Max’s estate is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.) The Times also reported allegations of abuse and neglect against Balkin, who took her life days later.

Within 24 hours of Balkin’s death, a court appointed Barbara Lissner, an attorney whose firm was founded by her father-in-law to help Holocaust survivors like Max, as the artist’s new guardian. But the situation quickly devolved. Three months later, with support from a group of Max’s friends and 17 of his cousins, Libra made the first of several so far unsuccessful attempts to end Max’s guardianship or at least to remove Lissner from the role.

In a 2020 affidavit submitted as part of these efforts, Lang alleged that he’d been unable to reach Max at home or in his studio since Lissner, 67, had taken over his care. “This is an absolute tragedy,” Lang stated. “I miss Peter deeply, and am very worried about him. … I’m sure that Peter’s current state — isolated and cut off from his family and close friends — is a depressing situation for him. This is simply not like the life he’s loved and lived.” (Lang never saw Max again; the legendary concert promoter died of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma last January.)

Lissner, meanwhile, recently brought a defamation suit against Libra — a move Libra’s new filing alleges violates New York’s so-called anti-SLAPP law, which is meant to prevent the use of lawsuits brought to intimidate people from exercising their free speech and public petition rights. For her claims against Lissner, Libra is asking for damages in an amount to be determined at trial.

Libra says she is fighting the conservatorship system in order to have more access to her father, to be free to take him to a doctor and be more involved in his medical care. Libra and her brother, Adam, are already the co-heirs of his estate, and she insists that her quest to emancipate Max has nothing to do with money, although she does challenge the fees that Lissner has billed.

“I have been trying to free my father because of my love for him,” Libra tells Rolling Stone, “and because he has been subjected to such cruelty,” she adds, referring to his alleged isolation from family and friends.

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Pop-Art Icon Peter Max’s Daughter Files New Suit Calling His Guardianship ‘Inhumane’