Born in Eastern Europe, Maximilian and his family escaped to the west in the 1950s. After schooling in the UK, he went on to study art, history and the history of art.

In 1973 he was invited to visit Mark Tobey in Basel, a visit that had a profound and lasting influence on him. In 1974 he visited the reclusive Simon Hantaï at his atelier in Neun, France. Upon returning, he decided to pursue painting as a career.

He had his first showing in 1975 but later that year moved to New York to pursue a career on Wall Street.

“Coming from a family of penniless refugees, I must admit my main concern at that time was to make some money”.

Nonetheless, he continued to paint and his works appeared at the Kuhlenschmidt Gallery.

He moved back to Europe in the mid-1980s with plans to paint full time. Fate intervened in the form of the flash crash of 1987, forcing him back into the financial sector. Nonetheless, he continued to paint and exhibited works at the Dorottya and Duna galleries in Budapest.

Finally in 2010, he made the decision that it was now or never, moved to Spain and has been painting full time since then.

“I have always been more attracted to abstract, pop and geometrical art than to the figurative side, especially after meeting Mark Tobey and Simon Hantai. When I lived in New York, I knew Warhol and Haring quite well, met Basquiat and spent a week with Robert Motherwell in his studio in Greenwich, Connecticut. I also had the chance to meet Olitski, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein and many others. Their works and ideas further influenced me.”