Peter Max: Art Marketer to the Japanese : Retailing: Tycoon Akira Tsumura will sell the controversial artist’s work in a new chain of shops in Japan. And that’s sure to rile critics who question his credibility.

Next to Peter Max’s desk in his white-on-white studio, splashed with the psychedelic colors that he’s famous for, is a photo collection of a few of his heroes: his swami, the Dalai Lama, his father and George Bush.

Lying on his worktable is a head-shot of the Asian businessman who is the latest object of his esteem: Akira Tsumura, the Japanese king of bath additives and herbal medicines. Tsumura has just signed a $3-million licensing deal with Max to establish a chain of 20 to 30 retail stores throughout Japan tentatively dubbed “NeoPop Shops.” They are scheduled to open during the next few months.

“I consider myself to be 90% Oriental,” said Max, a U.S. citizen who was born in Berlin 52 years ago but raised in China. “I felt an immediate affinity with Tsumura and with the Japanese. They understand my work, and I want to be able to share it with them.”

When all is said and done, Tsumura will invest up to $60 million in Max’s splash into the Japanese market. The 700- to 1,000-square-foot stores will sell Max paraphernalia ranging from $200 watches to $10,000 prints. Part of the investment in the chain will come from Tsumura himself and part from his $700-million conglomerate, Tsumura & Co.

Although Max may not be the darling of art critics, he is a hero among art marketers, who say he has a nose for deals. Many think he’s ahead of the pack once again by setting his sights on Japan as the next licensing capital for American artwork. Tsumura believes that sales from the NeoPop chain could reach $100 million to $200 million in the next two years.

“The Japanese are major players in the art market and major purchasers of American works,” said Ellen Salpeter, vice president at Dyansen Corp., a publicly held chain of art galleries that markets and packages art deco designer Erte’s works. Indeed, it was Japanese enthusiasm for art that broke a world record recently: A Japanese dealer paid $82.5 million in an auction for Vincent Van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet.”

“Peter Max was an innovator in marketing and packaging art back in the ‘60s,” Salpeter said. “The decision to move into Japan shows again that he has a tremendous sense for where the market is moving.”

Nonetheless, his Japanese venture is raising new questions about the man who gave the 1960s its hippie-dippie artistic backdrop: Is Peter Max the reconstituted pope of pop art and logical successor to Andy Warhol, or is he merely a designer and marketing whiz hoping to peddle his gadgets to the art world’s hottest new customers, the Japanese?

“How can you answer such a question?” said Milton Glaser, the renowned designer who gave Max one of his first jobs. “It’s a debate that’s been raging for years: What is art?”

But the intellectual debate plagues Max like a virus. After building a billion-dollar empire on profits from such things as clocks, clothing and posters that bore the distinctive “Summer-of-Love” stamp, Max went into self-imposed exile in the 1970s. He didn’t emerge for 15 years.

“I needed time to get back to the thing I loved most: painting,” he said.

What pushed him into seclusion, he said, was a desire to escape the tedium of business minutiae and to re-establish an artistic and spiritual life.

But Max is a bit of a walking contradiction. Half of him is steeped in the mysticism of the ‘60s. That side of him shows when he talks about the Dalai Lama and speaks a Far Eastern kind of psychic-babble. The next minute he’s all 1990s capitalism, quoting exact figures for deals he made or is about to make.

Artistic merit aside, Max is nothing short of a one-man corporation. He operates a three-story, 30,000-square-foot studio that carries monthly expenses of $200,000 and employs 35. There are no estimates on his total worth, but the licensing deal with the Japanese and his arrangement with San Francisco-based Hanson Galleries alone are worth close to $10 million.

It is this dichotomy between art and business that causes some critics to question Max’s credibility.

“He’s the producer of a product that many people confuse for art,” said Kramer, editor of New Criterion and art critic for the New York Observer. “What he does has nothing to do with art.”

Max responds defensively to Kramer’s assertion by listing his one-man shows and reeling off the museums that own and show his art. He says that Kramer, and many of his esoteric colleagues, are naive in thinking that artists such as Leonardo da Vinci or Paul Gauguin wouldn’t be marketing T-shirts and baseball caps if they had been born in the 20th century.

“I’ll bet that if Gauguin and Picasso were alive today, they would own (computer) paint boxes and would be using them to produce artwork,” Max said.

Sales of Max’s works here and in Japan are testimony to his popularity. His gallery racks up more than $12 million a year in the United States on sales of his paintings alone. Experts expect him to do as well in Japan. His success could pave the way for other artists.

“Peter Max has a tremendous following in Japan,” said Frank Podbelsek, a securities analyst who covers retail art galleries for Paine Webber Inc. in Los Angeles. “I understand he was the star of the Art Expo in Tokyo, and he’s making a lot of money for his gallery. If an artist is making money, many critics are ready to jump on them and declare them worthless and sellouts.”

In the industry, Max’s gallery is viewed as a leader in art packaging, a method used by art gallery chains to sell mass quantities of artwork. Art packagers will group together an artist’s paintings, serigraphs and sculptures with the same person’s scarves, watches, plates and calendars. The variety means that an artist sells in all price levels.

“The business revolves around putting together groups of goods that can be sold together,” Paine Webber’s Podbelsek said. “These companies sell artwork much like furniture companies sell bedroom sets.”

Max turned the concept of licensing and art packaging into an art form in the United States after first being approached by General Electric to create a clock. In licensing deals, the artist sells a manufacturer the right to use his name and his designs on a product. At one time in the 1970s, Max had licensed his name to more than 72 companies. Retail sales of his merchandise topped $1 billion.

The NeoPop shops in Japan will take Max into a new merchandising arena by selling higher-priced goods. In the past, he has licensed his name on affordably priced goods in the United States. For instance, Peter Max watches may sell in the United States for $50 to $75, compared to $200 in Japan.

Max has decided to continue selling not only watches but also ties and bathing suits in the United States. At one time, a more complete line of casual clothing was available in stores like Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Stern’s. But Max decided recently to get out of most of his U.S. licensing arrangements to concentrate on his Japanese venture.

Not everyone thought Max was bound for greatness when he got his start in the 1960s creating posters.

Glaser said when he first hired Max, he was a good designer with a distinct style, but he never expected Max’s look to evolve into a pop phenomenon.

“It’s safe to say that I’m very surprised,” he said. “There was a time back in the ‘60s when everywhere you looked there was some object with his work on it.”