Peter Maier

Peter Maier’s work is where precision meets passion — a fusion of industrial mastery and raw, emotional expression. His journey began at the iconic Pratt Institute, but even before graduation, his talent was already recognized. As a freshman, he assisted sculptor Robert Mallary on a commission for the 1964 New York World’s Fair — a project led by famed architect Philip Johnson. It was here that Maier’s lifelong pursuit of scale, power, and innovation in visual art took root.

Maier was recruited by General Motors before his junior year, launching a prolific career in automotive design. Rising quickly through the ranks, he became Senior Designer for Cadillac, Pontiac, and Chevrolet — one of the youngest ever to do so. After serving as a Military Police Officer in Vietnam from 1967–69, he returned to the U.S.. He continued shaping American automotive design until 1980, when he left the security of GM to return to his first love: fine art.

But Maier did not return to painting the way he left it. He reimagined the practice entirely.

Harnessing experimental automotive paints — including Axalta Cromax AT, a state-of-the-art, waterborne medium developed by DuPont — Maier invented a technique never before seen in the art world. Painting on high-tech aluminum panels, he layers 25+ coats of transparent color, never mixing pigments, letting light pass through each glaze to refract and reflect with immersive depth. What emerges is work that’s at once realistic and abstract—industrial in execution, soulful in presence.

Maier does not consider himself a photorealist, despite the illusionistic precision of his images. His paintings breathe. They radiate. His subjects — whether human, animal, or machine — are often portrayed head-on or in striking profile, not simply to be seen, but to confront and connect.

Peter Maier's paintings are not only feats of technique — they are emotional machines. They speak to legacy, resilience, innovation, and beauty in bold, unapologetic form.