1938
Born, St. Louis, MO, an only child to Marvin H. Hendler & Jeannette May Fireside.
1943-1955
Family settles in Houston, TX where the whole family becomes active in the beginnings of the Alley Theater. Maxwell draws constantly; cartoons in school newspaper; attends classes at Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Assistant to mural painter.
1955-56
Family moves to Southern California. Graduates South Pasadena High School. Illustrates yearbook.
1956-60
Attends University of California, Los Angeles, earns Bachelor of Arts degree. Studies with Sam Amato, William Brice, Elliott Elgart, Gordon Nunes and Jan Stussy. Draws sports cartoons in Daily Bruin Newspaper. Marries fellow artist Arleen Goldberg. Moves to Ocean Park, California.
[ back to top ]1960-62
Attends University of California, Los Angeles, earns Master of Arts degree. Teaching Assistantship. Begins expressionist-figurative oil paintings. Two person exhibition with Arleen Goldberg at Ceeje Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
1962-63
Moves to Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York but continues education through UCLA Master of Fine Arts program.
[ back to top ]1963-64
Moves to Venice Beach, CA. Studio on Pier Avenue, Ocean Park, CA. Oil paintings now less expressionistic, slow turn toward realism. Quits UCLA MFA program.
[ back to top ]1964-65
Starts first continuous direct-observation small realist oil paintings. Finishes first body of new work, first one person show at Ceeje Gallery.
[ back to top ]1965
Teaches at UCLA Art Extension, LA Pierce College, and L.A. City Parks arts program. Starts first long-term, direct-observation oil paintings at home.
1966
First child born, Cara.
1967
Assistant Professor of Art, California State University, Northridge.
1968
Second child born, Emanuelle.
1969
One person exhibition of 3 oil paintings at Eugenia Butler Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
1969-74
Assistant Professor of Art, California State University, Long Beach. Included in “11 Los Angeles Artists,” traveling exhibition, curated by Maurice Tuchman and Jane Livingston, traveled to London, Bruxelles and Berlin. Begins “Sandpainting” (single, small, long-term, oil painting in Santa Monica studio). Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship.
[ back to top ]1975
Divorced from Arleen Goldberg. Promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure. Quits. Starts transparent and opaque watercolor paintings; small, direct-observation, still life paintings with more narrative content. Completes Sandpainting. Teaches part-time at Art Center College and College of Creative Studies at University of California Santa Barbara. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY mounts solo exhibition of 5 oil paintings spanning 1965-75, and acquires two paintings and group of watercolors.
1976
Moves to Berkeley, California with poet Andrée Connors. Continues small watercolor paintings. Included in “Painting and Sculpture in California: The Modern Era,” co-curated by Walter Hopps and Henry Hopkins, traveled to the National Gallery, Washington, DC and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA. Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibits Sandpainting as a one person exhibition.
[ back to top ]1977
Moves to Garberville area, California. Lives and works in small wooden dome on rural hillside. First of two solo exhibitions at Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY.
[ back to top ]1978-82
Moves to Mendocino coast. Lives and works in fully-equipped, cab-over camper truck. Continues watercolor paintings with still-lives, glued down for travel. Moves into small studio room in Mendocino Village. Starts large, realist oil paintings.
1982-85
Moves to Los Angeles, California. Lives and works in one-room apartment in Crenshaw neighborhood. First of nine, one-person exhibitions at Asher/Faure and Patricia Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA over the next twenty years.
[ back to top ]1986-1989
Meets artist Claire Keith. Continues large oil paintings with more simplified, figurative elements. Also period of artistic experimentation: word paintings, textured ground and construction paintings.
[ back to top ]1990
First transparent and opaque pigmented, poured, and polished polyester resin paintings, which he continues today.
1991-present
Together with Claire Keith, they design and build a live/work dwelling with two studios and one living space on a hillside in Northeast Los Angeles.
Education
1956-60
B.A. Cum Laude, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
1960-62
M.A. University of California, Los Angeles, CA
1962-64
Post-Graduate studies in Painting, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
Honors and Awards
1974/75
National Endowment for the Arts, Fellowship in Painting
1972/73
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
1962/63
Max Beckmann Memorial Scholarship, Brooklyn Museum of Art School, New York, NY
1961/62
Teaching Assistantship, Art Department, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
