Artist Peter Max has battled with dementia and been under the care of a guardian.
Carly Otness
Despite his daughter’s claims to the contrary, famed pop artist Peter Max — worth a cool $65 million — is no prisoner, claims the court-appointed guardian who controls his affairs.
The ailing 84-year-old father of two, whose artwork has created the
whopping fortune, suffers from dementia and has had every aspect of his
life — legal, personal and financial — under court scrutiny since 2015.
The artist’s daughter, Libra Max, and a pal, Edward Tricomi, have been on a “Free Britney”-style campaign, claiming the person in charge of Peter’s personal affairs — including his healthcare, activities and social visits — has been ruining his life instead.
They even have a web site, freepetermax.com,
which has drawn the support of well-known names like Tony Danza and
Mary Trump, with accusations that guardian Barbara Lissner has kept the
artist isolated, drained his funds and even taken his phone and his
cats.
Peter
Max works on a painting of the Statue of Liberty aboard a boat in New
York Harbor, as part of the Fourth of July festivities in 1987. AP
But it’s all a lie, contends Lissner, who is suing the daughter and Tricomi in Manhattan Supreme Court for defamation.
Libra, 54, controls her father’s finances, and she’s the one
“confiscated” Max’s phone and cats, according to Lissner’s suit, which
notes judges have repeatedly rejected Libra’s allegations of
mismanagement.
“[O]nly she knows of their whereabouts,” Lissner said of the felines,
alleging in her court papers that “Libra and Mr. Tricomi’s depravity
know no bounds.”
Lissner, an attorney who works with Holocaust victims and was
appointed by in 2019 to oversee Peter’s affairs, claims in court papers
that Libra and Tricomi have falsely accused her of kidnapping or even
trafficking Peter; called her a Nazi; wrongly claimed they’ve been
barred from seeing the artist and accused judges who disagree with them
of taking kickbacks.
The alleged smear campaign has been so effective that Lissner and her
law firm now get “emails and telephone calls accusing them of crimes
and threatening them,” according to court papers.
Libra Max (right) has been advocating for her father’s release from a guardianship, which she claims is abusive. Stephen Yang
Lissner claims Peter Max requested guardianship because “tension” and
“mismanagement” of his affairs by his family, which includes Libra, son
Adam Max and his second wife, Mary, who allegedly abused the artist before she committed suicide at age 52 in June 2019.
He rejected the idea of putting Libra in charge, according to Lissner’s suit.
Libra Max was so difficult she drove out guardian after guardian, Lissner alleged.
Lissner wanted to resign last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic made that impossible, she said in the court papers.
“It’s my opinion that a number of [guardians] stepped aside, quite
frankly, because of all the pandemonium that was raised in the Max
household [by Libra Max and Max’s late wife, Mary],” Robert Johnson, an attorney for Max’s son Adam, told The Post. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but that’s what I would have to say.”
Peter’s son, Adam Max, told The Post he backs Lissner.
“Everything Barbara Lissner is alleging is true,” he said. “Barbara
Lissner is giving my father excellent care. He’s never been treated
better in his life.”
Lissner’s allegations are “motivated by greed and a desire to silence
Libra Max for exposing the abuse of her father,” said Libra Max’s
lawyer, Jeffrey M. Eilender. “The suit is a tissue of lies and a money
grab. Barbara Lissner continues to put Peter Max in danger and must be
removed immediately. Peter needs critical medical attention. Libra will
not be silenced.”
Edward Tricomi and Libra Max hold a picture of artist Peter Max.
Stephen Yang
Pop artist Peter Max, 84, father, animal advocate and Alzheimer’s victim.
Born Nazi Germany. Refugee, fled before the Holocaust. American
immigrant. Now — finances dwindling — under New York City
court-appointed guardianship.
I have reported this before.
Now daughter Libra asks to help what she calls a seemingly
“over-medicated Peter” and “involuntary daylong isolation” and “family
members requiring formal written request even for time limited,
surveilled visitation.” Phone’s removed. Pets removed. Health care proxy
family members are allegedly no longer privy to his medical
information.
Cited is camera surveillance 24 hours a day, no permission to visit
his own art studio, lifelong friends needing to sign an NDA before
addressing him.
Libra Max (M), daughter of pop-artist Peter Max, friends and animal
rights activists protested outside the law firm Phillip Nizer demanding
an end of the artist's forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele
Holtermann)
While Britney Spears’ nightmare
conservatorship has ended after 13 years, thanks partly to the tenacity
of the “Free Britney” movement, family and friends of renowned pop
artist Peter Max have been fighting a legal battle since 2019 to free
the 84-year-old Holocaust survivor from a guardianship his family and
supporters describe as abusive and exploitive.
At a protest outside the law office
of Phillips Nizer LLP in Midtown Manhattan on Nov.4, his daughter Libra
Max rallied for her father’s freedom with the support of animal rights
activists and family members of victims of guardianship abuse.
Peter Max, who has Alzheimer’s and
made a name for himself with his colorful psychedelic paintings in the
60s and 70s and whose works hang in the Museum of Modern Art, was placed
under guardianship in 2016 because of alleged mistreatment by his wife
Mary, who committed suicide in 2019 at the age of 52.
Friends
and animal rights activists protested alongside Libra Max, daughter of
pop-artist Peter Max, outside the law firm Phillip Nizer demanding an
end of the artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
Libra Max shared that they didn’t
encounter any problems with the first two guardians because they didn’t
interfere with her dad’s life. The older Max’s nightmare began in 2019
when his court-appointed attorney Elizabeth Adinolfi, a partner with
Phillips Nizer LLP, picked attorney Barbara Urbach Lissner of Lissner
& Lissner LLP as his legal personal guardian.
Libra Max and her supporters allege
that Adinolfi and Urbach Lissner and Peter’s legal property guardian,
Lawrence Flynn, worked together in the past and that his estate is being
depleted under their guardianship and that they control all aspects of
his life.
“The problem is when somebody steps
into that role, a court-appointed role, and they don’t have proper
motives, and they don’t have proper ethics, and they’re there for greed.
There is no oversight, and you can’t get them out,” Peter Max’s
daughter said.
Friends
and animal rights activists protested alongside Libra Max, daughter of
pop-artist Peter Max, outside the law firm Phillip Nizer demanding an
end of the artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
Speaking to about thirty supporters holding up signs reading “#FreePeterMax”
and depicting some of his most iconic paintings, Libra Max shared that
she can only see her dad three times a week for an hour under strict
supervision -on a public park bench in Riverside Park. She is prohibited
from entering her childhood home on the Upper Westside, where her
father lives in complete isolation. She claims that her dad has to ask
for permission to call his family and friends – something four of Peter
Max’s long-time friends attested to in an affidavit to the New York State Supreme Court– and the guardians even got rid of his five beloved rescue cats.
Libra Max said that her father, who
she estimates barely weighs 100 pounds, has been begging to be released
to the care of his family.
“That is what was in [Peter Max]
estate planning documentation, which has all been voided by the
guardianship system,” Libra Max explained. “When you are put into
guardianship, all of your estate planning is voided. All of your
documentation is voided. Your human rights are voided. Your
constitutional rights are voided. You have less rights than a convicted
felon!”
Libra
Max, daughter of pop-artist Peter Max, friends and animal rights
activists protested outside Phillips Nizer LLP demanding an end of the
artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
Libra Max pointed out that about 1.3
million Americans are in guardian and conservatorships in the United
States. While some guardians certainly represent the interests of their
wards, many might have more sinister motives since $50 billion are in
the care of conservators.
“This is a money-making industry. This is not about protection,” Libra Max, who recently submitted a written statement to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution regarding Toxic Conservatorships: The Need for Reform, said.
“My father escaped the Holocaust,”
Max said. “He came to this country as a teenage immigrant with nothing.
He started from nothing. He believed in the American dream. And because
he achieved the American dream, it has now made him a target.”
Friends
and animal rights activists protested alongside Libra Max, daughter of
pop-artist Peter Max, outside Phillips Nizer LLP demanding an end of the
artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
Every person who ever crossed paths
with Peter Max described him as a deeply caring, warm-hearted man with
an abundant love for animals.
Animal rights campaigner Donny Moss
joined the rally to help free vegan Peter Max from his alleged predatory
guardianship and support Libra Max in her quest to get her father
back.
“Peter Max, for as long as I can
remember, opened his legendary art studio to the animal rights
community,” Moss said. “And now he’s being abused in many of the same
ways that he was fighting against. He’s being stripped of his freedom,
of his family, of his dignity.”
Friends
and animal rights activists protested alongside Libra Max, daughter of
pop-artist Peter Max, outside Phillips Nizer LLP demanding an end of the
artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
Edita Birnkrant, executive director
of NYCLASS, a non-profit animal rights organization, has known Peter Max
for many years and was grateful for his support of NYCLASS and his
efforts banning the horse carriage industry.
“It’s so wrong what’s happening,”
Birnkrant said about Max’s situation. “That someone who fought against
injustice and cruelty and exploitation for people and animals is now
suffering and doesn’t even have his freedom. It’s like he’s in jail.”
Birnkrant promised to fight as vigorously for Peter Max’s freedom as he fought to free abused and exploited animals.
“We’re just so heartbroken that his own freedom and dignity is being stripped of him,” Birnkrant expressed.
Friends
and animal rights activists protested alongside Libra Max, daughter of
pop-artist Peter Max, outside Phillips Nizer LLP demanding an end of the
artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
Animal rights activist Rachel Levy
Ejsmont worked with Peter Max on the “Surrender Your Heart” video by
Missing Persons in 1983 and described him as a “sweetheart and gentle,
gentle being.”
“There’s absolutely no reason for him
to be held in captivity,” Levy Ejsmont said and pointed out that like
animals, humans don’t thrive in isolation. “Animals are driven to
lunacy, and they’re driven to madness when they’re kept isolated and
captive from their loved ones.”
In a statement, which the law firm
handed out to protesters and signed by Marc A. Landis, Managing Partner,
Phillips Nizer LLP wrote that the firm supported the First Amendment
right to peaceful protest and referred to the firm’s long history of
First Amendment advocacy. It rejected the claims made by Libra Max and
her supporters.
Friends
and animal rights activists protested alongside Libra Max, daughter of
pop-artist Peter Max, outside Phillips Nizer LLP demanding an end of the
artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
“Phillips Nizer is providing legal
services to a client as ordered and approved by the New York State
Supreme Court. We serve this client, as we do all of our clients, in
accordance with our professional and ethical responsibilities as
attorneys.
The claims made by Libra Max and her
allies are demonstrably false and defamatory to our firm and attorneys.
We will address this at the appropriate time and in the appropriate
forum.
Due to the sensitive nature of
guardianship proceedings, and pursuant to the duty of privilege that we
owe to our clients, we will not offer any further comments at this
time.”
Friends
and animal rights activists protested alongside Libra Max, daughter of
pop-artist Peter Max, outside Phillips Nizer LLP demanding an end of the
artist’s forced guardianship. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann)
Loved ones of pop artist icon Peter Max are pleading for the end of his court-appointed guardianship. His daughter, Libra Max, says the guardian is financially exploiting her father.
Peter Max is in a legal guardianship in which every aspect of his life
is controlled by court-appointed strangers, says his daughter Libra Max.
-
John Lamparski/WireImage
It’s not just Britney Spears who is trapped in a guardianship, isolated from friends and family, with all personal, financial, and legal decisions controlled by others.
In New York, legendary pop artist Peter Max
also is being held against his will in a legal guardianship, in which
every aspect of his life is controlled by court-appointed strangers,
says his daughter Libra Max, 54.
She complains that she is not allowed to visit her 83-year-old father
at the Upper West Side apartment that was her childhood home. She is
permitted to see him only on a public bench in Riverside Park, and only
for an hour at a time after requesting the appointment 48 hours in
advance.
The visits are limited to three per week and can be canceled without
explanation, as happened this week after she spoke to The Post.
“He is being treated like a prisoner,” she says. “Every single time I
see him, which has to be approved and scheduled, he says, ‘Sweetie,
please come up to the apartment.’ How many times can someone ask for
companionship? He must feel tremendously abandoned.
“I see his disbelief when I tell him that I cannot accept his
invitation to come up. . . . Instead, he is left with a cast of strange
nurses [who] change constantly and he does not know their names.
“My father [is a] Holocaust survivor. His deepest fear was having friends and family taken away from him.”
Peter
Max’s longtime friend Edward Tricomi and daughter Libra Max say the
artist is being taken advantage of by his legal guardian. Stephen Yang
Max, a counterculture icon of the 1960s and 1970s, whose works hang
in the Museum of Modern Art, has an estimated fortune of at least $65
million. An intimate of the Rolling Stones, the German immigrant became
rich plastering his psychedelic designs on postage stamps, cereal boxes,
album covers, even a Continental Airlines Boeing 777. Nancy Reagan
asked him to paint portraits of the Statute of Liberty at the White
House, after which he helped raise money to restore the monument.
Now he suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and was placed under
guardianship in December 2016, after the court ruled that he needed
protection from alleged physical, mental, and emotional abuse by his then-second wife, Mary.
Mary Max committed suicide at age 52, in June 2019, just before
attorney Barbara Lissner took over the guardianship, when the previous
court-appointed guardian resigned.
Libra applied to the court two months later to end the guardianship —
but failed. Even though the reason for protecting Max had ended with
Mary’s death, the burden of proof on those who want to end the guardianship is onerous.
“A guardianship is forever,” says lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a friend of
Max’s since the 1990s, who was denied permission this week to visit
him. “They never stop.”
A judge removed Jamie Spears from Britney Spears’ conservatorship on Sept. 29, 2021.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Since Lissner’s appointment, says Libra, her father’s freedom has
been savagely curtailed. His beloved cats were removed, and his friends
are required to sign nondisclosure agreements before they can even talk
to him on the phone.
More than $1 million per year has been drained from Max’s bank accounts to pay for his care, which Libra claims is excessive.
Max’s previous two guardians, who served from January 2018 to June
2019, charged $53,127 in fees over 18 months, while Lissner billed
$598,654 over 13 months through July 2020, according to itemized
accounting prepared for the court by Libra’s attorney, Linda Redlinsky.
At the time Lissner became Max’s guardian, he was receiving care from
home health care aides for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at a cost
of $528,039 in 2019.
Lissner hired additional registered nurses from Alliance Nursing Homecare for an extra $397,731.
Libra alleges that her father is the victim of the growing scourge of
guardianship abuse and has enlisted the help of a dozen of his old
friends and relatives, including hairdresser Edward Tricomi, Woodstock
producer Michael Lang and Max’s former long-term lover, model Rosie
Vela, to petition the court to set him free.
“This system of appointing guardians has become an ATM machine
for some lawyers and guardians,” says Dershowitz. “I’m sure many are
well intentioned but ‘family first, courts last’ has to be the rule.
“I just feel terrible for him. He’s my age and it could happen to me
as easily as it happened to him. The only thing people like Peter need
is loving contact with their children. . . . It is so inhumane [to] put
him in the hands of strangers who bill by the hour. Really, what harm
could there be in having old friends and relatives sit with him and
schmooze with him?”
Lissner, Max’s “personal needs” guardian, declined to comment.
She and her husband, Michael, are partners in the Columbus Circle law
firm Lissner & Lissner, founded by Michael’s late father Jerry to
serve Holocaust refugees who had fled Europe.
The couple was criticized by the Supreme Court in Bronx County in
2014 over a case in which they sought to be appointed financial
guardians of an unnamed 94-year-old woman at the Hebrew Home for the
Aged in Riverdale.
“It would be an understatement to declare that this court is outraged
by the behavior exhibited by the interested parties,” read the
decision, “parties who were supposed to protect the person, but who have
all unabashedly demonstrated through their actions . . . that they are
only interested in getting paid.”
Peter Max’s wife Mary Max committed suicide at age 52 in June 2019.John Lamparski/WireImage
However, Lissner does have the support of Libra’s brother Adam Max.
Adam, who is in a separate legal dispute with his sister, disputes
Libra’s allegations about her father’s treatment and has opposed her
attempts to end the guardianship.
“Peter is doing extremely well and receives visits from family and
friends regularly including Adam multiple times every week,” said one of
Adam’s attorneys Matthew Seidner.
“Libra has feigned difficulties with the guardianship for a long time.”
But Adam also is restricted in his visits with his father, which must
be scheduled in advance through the guardian, and Seidner could not
explain why Libra was not allowed into her father’s apartment.
Max’s friend of 40 years, celebrity hairdresser Tricomi, confirms
that he was cut off from seeing his old pal the day Mary Max died. More
than 40 phone calls went unanswered, and he says the doorman at Max’s
building told him the new guardian would not allow friends up to the
apartment.
Libra Max complains that she is not allowed to visit her 83-year-old father Peter Max.Mike Pont/Getty Images
Recently, Tricomi has been allowed to talk to Max on FaceTime, but says whenever they talk, his friend begs: “please visit me.”
A gregarious, hospitable man, Max always hated to be alone, Tricomi said.
“He would even call me up to come and watch him paint. He would say,
‘I have a cappucino and a brownie for you,’ and I would play music and
stay till two or three in the morning.”
Max’s West 64th Street studio was always full of people. “You’d go
there and find Keith Richards or Ronnie Wood hanging out, or President
Clinton. There was always some celebrity at his studio.”
But after Mary died, Max was forced to become a recluse. “There’s no
reason on earth he should have a guardian. This is a legal kidnapping.”
Max’s former live-in partner, Vela, said they remained “best friends
[and] for the last 30 years, we have talked on the phone daily.
“Nearly a year ago, Ms. Lissner blocked me from all contact with my
closest friend. I was not allowed to see or speak with Peter for 11
months. This year has been very difficult for all of us who love him,
but surely it has been devastating to Peter.”
Vela said when she finally was able to FaceTime Max this year, he begged her to visit him.
The removal of Max’s cats was especially “cruel,” she said in an
affidavit. “Peter’s animals have always been such a big part of his
life. He loves them.”
Max’s cousin Susyn Gliedman, who grew up with the artist in Brooklyn,
also complains that Lissner has “blocked us all from his life. He
doesn’t deserve to be punished like this . . . Libra has always been the
apple of Peter’s eye . . . She looks like his mother Sala. To deprive
him of having Libra care for him at his age is abuse, pure and simple.
“He needed a guardian to protect him from Mary when Mary was alive, but he no longer needs that protection.”
The US system of court-appointed guardians originally was intended to
protect the vulnerable elderly and incapacitated, but in some cases, it
has become a money-making scheme for a network of unscrupulous lawyers,
judges and care providers, who sell the assets of their charges and
control their lives without their consent.
The Britney Spears case
grabbed the headlines when the 39-year-old pop princess rang 911 to
report herself as a victim of guardianship abuse, and went to court to
remove her father as guardian. But cases of abuse have been bubbling
through the courts for years. In 2019, former Nevada guardian April
Parks was accused of stealing from hundreds of vulnerable people in her
care and sentenced to 16-40 years in prison.
There are 1.5 million people in America in guardianships. If someone
as wealthy and famous as Peter Max, with lots of high-profile friends,
can be trapped, so can anyone.
NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- #FreePeterMax is a grassroots movement demanding the release of 84-year-old renowned artist Peter Max
from an unconstitutional and predatory guardianship that has severely
restricted his access to family and friends while depleting his bank
account of millions of dollars. The campaign is urging supporters to
sign an open letter that will be sent to public officials who have
jurisdiction over guardianships (also known as conservatorships).
The involuntary isolation and cruel treatment of Peter at the hands
of the court-appointed guardian (a stranger) began almost a year before
COVID in violation of his civil liberties and human rights. The letter
(below) details the exploitation and can be signed at www.FreePeterMax.com.
Prominent individuals who have already signed include: Michael Lang(Producer & Creator of the Woodstock Music Festival), Prof.Philip C. Marshall (grandson of Brooke Astor), Tom Freston (former Chairman & CEO of MTV Networks and former Viacom Co-President & Co-COO), Mary L. Trump, Bradford Disney Lund(grandson of Walt Disney who is also trapped in an abusive conservatorship), Catherine Falk (daughter of Peter Falk, pioneer of The Peter Falk Bill), Kerry Rooney-Mack (daughter of Mickey Rooney, family rights advocate), Dr. Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy (elder justice advocate), as well as Co-Founders of Free Britney America and other advocates across the country.
The full letter and a list of prominent individuals who have already signed onto it can be found online at FreePeterMax.com
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 more than two 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.
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.”
The 83-year-old, whose brightly colored psychedelic paintings were
extremely popular in the 1960s, has suffered from Alzheimer’s for the
past decade. But some family members now say that the attorneys
responsible for the wealthy artist are siphoning his money while keeping
him under lock and key.
American Illustrator and graphic artist Peter Max unveils his Paul
McCartney Portrait Series at the Peter Max Studio on June 18, 2012 in
New York City. (Simon Russell/Getty Images)
“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,” reads a letter demanding an end to the guardianship signed by
his daughter, Libra Max, as well as other family members, friends and
supporters.
“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,” the letter says.
Peter Max Art Exhibit on February 13, 1992 at Hanson Gallery in Beverly Hills, California. (Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty)
For decades, Max’s art has been ubiquitous and his lifestyle decadent —
he was on the cover of Time magazine in 1969 with the headline
“Portrait of the Artist as a Very Rich Man.” He made designs for the
2006 Olympics as well as the 2000 Subway Series between the Yankees and
Mets.
The publicity blitz by Max’s family members comes amid growing concerns
about abuse of the guardianship process. Britney Spears grabbed
international headlines when she said she felt “enslaved” by an “abusive” conservatorship that she has been unable to escape since mental health crises in 2007 and 2008.
Max’s guardianship appears to be complicated by a family dispute.
Libra Max filed a petition against her brother, Adam Max — who shares
ownership of their father’s art company with her — in 2017.
Artist Peter Max attends Gotham Magazine Celebrates its Summer Issue
with Peter Max and The Humane Society of the United States at Loews
Regency Hotel on June 25, 2014 in New York City. (Ben Gabbe)
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.
