Artist Peter Max was famous for his colorful, psychedelic paintings. But locally, he may better known for saving Cincinnati Freedom, a rambunctious cow that prowled the city for 11 days. Max died Sept. 14. He was 88.
Max, who was living with dementia for at least a decade, died in a hospital this week, his son Adam Max told The New York Times and The Associated Press
on Sept. 16. A cause of death was not provided.Max was a prolific and commercially successful artist whose work appeared on an airplane, a cruise ship, postage stamps, and promotional materials for the Super Bowl, the World Cup, MTV's 1980s logo, the Manhattan Yellow Pages, and the Grammy Awards.
In 2002, a Charolais cow jumped a six-foot fence at Ken Meyer Meats in Camp Washington.
As she continued to elude the authorities in Mount Storm park, her story went national.
According to The Enquirer archives, "authorities were unable to corral the bovine fugitive in a heavily wooded section of the park." At that point, she had been hiding in the park for several days.
Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken and Fifth Third Bank were all pulling for the cow's safe capture. Luken even said he would give the cow a key to the city once it was captured.
Once she was safely captured, it was Max who purchased her. He gave her the iconic name Cincinnati Freedom and moved her to live out the rest of her life at Farm Sanctuary in New York with around 50 other cows that had escaped slaughterhouses.
She was put down on Dec. 29, 2008, after being diagnosed with spinal cancer around the age 15 or 16, according to Enquirer archives.
During her time at the sanctuary, she put on 500 pounds, adding to her initially reported weight of about 1,500. Despite the additional weight, Cinci could clear a five-foot fence from a standstill position, the Farm Sanctuary's National Shelter Director Susie Coston told the Enquirer.
"She symbolized the will to live, to enjoy life and to not be messed with," Coston told The Enquirer upon the cow's death. "We can relate to that."
In a 2010 interview with Max, he told The Enquirer he had visited Cincinnati Freedom at the sanctuary many times. He said that when she died, all the cows stayed with her in the barn through the night.
"Then I got the phone call ... I still keep it on my cell phone," he said. "It's a holy thing to do while we're on this earth – look out for species who can't help themselves."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Peter Max, artist, savior of Cincinnati Freedom, famous runaway cow, dies at 88
