Peter Maier was born with "gasoline in his blood." Trained at an early age by his German father to be a precision machinist, Maier was always intrigued by the automobile and motorcycle. Maier went on to graduate from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, with degrees in Industrial Design and Fine Art. He was then hired by General Motors at age 20. After his return from Vietnam in 1969, Maier became Senior Automotive Designer for Chevrolet, Pontiac and Cadillac Motor Divisions.
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Peter Maier was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1945. He graduated from Pratt Institute, located in New York, where he studied under Professor Max Spivak and sculptor Robert Mallary, who he assisted on the “Cliff Hangers,” a sculpture for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. Maier is truly an amazing and talented American artist, creating such ultra realistic masterpieces, which even transcend the medium of photography, as to take your breath away. He was highly influenced by such realistic masters as Grundewald, Durer, Homer, and Wyeth. Maier worked as an automobile designer for General Motors for a good number of years before retiring and devoting his time to becoming a full time artist. Maier spends his summers in Virginia and New England, while his winters are spent in Pennsylvania and Michigan where he presently lives. Maier has had numerous exhibitions, and his works are in many private and corporate collections across the country. One thing that makes Maier so unique is that he utilizes a technique known as egg tempera, a way of painting that dates back to the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Paint for egg tempera is made from a combination of dry earth pigments used for the color, water that becomes a thinner, and egg yolks for binding it together. The combination of these three ingredients produces a medium which dries to a wax-like finish, highly resists cracking and fading, and has three important characteristics: it forms a film which can be glazed over and over again without destroying the undercoats, it dries to the touch in minutes (although it takes at least a year to set chemically), and each coat of the underpainting glows through the overpainting resulting in a luminosity and brilliance of color which cannot be duplicated by other mediums. Maier employs three basic techniques in painting with egg tempera: dry brush, which is more controlled; wet brush, which is more spontaneous; and finished tempera, which is the most tedious since it utilizes numerous layers of glazed paint.
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BORN
1945 in Brooklyn, NY
EDUCATION
1962-66 Bachelor of Industrial Design, Pratt Institute of Design, Brooklyn, NY
1962-64 Assistant to Robert Mallary on The Cliffhangers, commissioned by Phillip Johnson for the New York World Fair State Pavillion in 1964-65
1965 General Motors Design Staff, Summer Program
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1966 General Motors Design Staff, Designer
1969-80 General Motors Design Staff, Senior Automotive Designer Cadillac, Pontiac, and Chevrolet Motor Divisions
1980 Left General Motors to devote full time to fine art
SELECTED MUSEUMS
Harley Davidson Museum, Milwaukee, WI
AWARDS
Edgar A. Whitney Award, 114th American Watercolor Society Exhibit, NY 1982
Gold Medal of Honor, Allied Artists of America Exhibit, NY 1982
Award of Excellence, Concours d’Elegancem, Meadow Brook Hall, MI 1988
Award of Excellence, Gilmore Classic Car Club Museums, MI 1989
Award of Excellence, Concours d’Elegancem, Meadow Brook Hall, MI 1989
Grand Prize in Fine Art, The Glenmore Gathering of Significant Vehicles, OH, 2003
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