Mary Max, Wife of Peter Max, is Found Dead of an Apparent Suicide

A friend of Mary Max, 52, the wife of artist Peter Max, found her body Sunday inside the couple’s 15th floor apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Riverside Drive near West 84th Street. The cause of death is an apparent suicide of nitrogen asphyxiation. Mary and her stepson, Adam, had been steeped in legal turmoil revolving around the failing health of 81-year-old Peter and his artwork.

Peter has an advanced state of dementia, and his mental state has steadily declined in recent years. Adam had sued Mary in 2015 claiming that she was trying to kill his father to gain control over his multi-million dollar art collection. Mary asked then asked the court to appoint a guardian to oversee her husband’s business after Adam and three business associates took over the artist’s studio, increasing production and profit through a series of art auctions on cruise ships. After the appointment of the guardian, Adam removed his father from his home and moved him around New York for more than a month, to which Mary accused him of “kidnapping” Peter and withholding his whereabouts from her.

A judge ordered Peter to be returned to Mary’s care at their Manhattan apartment and that a guardian oversee both his business and personal affairs. Peter’s daughter who lives in Los Angeles, Libra, took over her father’s studio in January and filed a lawsuit to stop her brother from being able to interact with the company.

See Bridie Pearson-Jones and Ariel Zilber, Mary Max, Wife of Peter Max, is Found Dead of an Apparent Suicide, Daily Mail, June 11, 2019.