FROM OBSCURITY TO ABSTRACT MASTER: ARMENIAN-AMERICAN ARTIST WINS POSTHUMOUS FAME
Updated: March 29, 2013
By Richard Solash
WASHINGTON, DC (RFE/RL) – A landscape dissolves into reds, yellows,
and greens. A mountain in New York State is filtered through an
artist’s imagination, rendered on canvas in angular patches.
These were among the visions of Arthur Pinajian, an unknown
Armenian-American painter whose death in 1999 prompted little more
than the rental of a dumpster. The dumpster was to be filled with
decades’-worth of his writings and pencil sketches and a garage-full
of paintings that numbered close to 6,000.
Today, Pinajian’s work hangs on the well-lighted walls of a SoHo
gallery. Leading art historians say that at his best, he ranks among
America’s finest abstract expressionists. His estate has been appraised
at $30 million. After several kind twists of fates, Pinajian has been
vaulted out of obscurity and is now gaining improbable posthumous fame.
“I came into the house to look at it with the purpose of figuring
out if it was a good house to flip (eds: buy and resell for profit)
and I walked among all of this art. I was intrigued by it because it
was so vast. I started looking closely at it and it was clear that
the signature that was across the works was the same artist. Based on
dates, it seemed like there were works spanning 5 decades at least. I
knew what I was looking at was someone’s life’s work.”
Pinajian house
Thomas Schultz was living in the sleepy town of Bellport, New York
in 2005 when he and a friend decided to take advantage of an uptick
in the real estate market. A modest two-bedroom cottage had been
listed for sale that, with a bit of renovation, seemed like it could
turn a profit. Its owner, a woman named Armen Pinajian, had recently
passed away.
Schultz says the woman’s cousins apologized for the unusual mess left
inside – thousands of canvases, some bitten by mold and mildew, that
were stuffed into the attic’s rafters and piled up in the garage. A
dumpster was ready for them out back.
??The artist, Arthur Pinajian, had died at 85 ahead of his sister,
whom he had lived with for most of his life. Accounts by family members
indicate she was the artist’s biggest fan, working as a clerk in a pipe
company to support her brother’s creative aspirations. The few attempts
by the artist to win recognition during his lifetime were unsuccessful.
The cousins said Pinajian had left instructions for all of his work to
be thrown away. They would have already disposed of it, Schultz says,
had one of them from out of town not arrived at the last minute and
literally carried paintings back from the curb.
Schultz’s friend put up around $300,000 for the house and $2,500 for
the entire body of work.
The enormous collection had not only been spared, but had fallen
into the right hands. Schultz happened to know a relative of the late
William Innes Homer, one of the most respected scholars of contemporary
American art.
After several months of study, Homer would make an excited call to
noted American art historian and appraiser Peter Hastings Falk:
Pinajian house garage
“If you look at the history of abstraction in America, certainly the
headlines are given to [Jackson] Pollock and Franz Kline and [Willem]
de Kooning and all of the stars of that period who are now ensconced
in the pantheon of American art history. And it’s long been thought
that no one else could ever crack into that elite rank because, of
course, everyone has been discovered and art historians already know
everything. The really fun thing about this is here is the dean of
American art historians who is just simply astonished – and I was,
too. That’s what makes this such an extraordinary story.”
Falk is now the exhibitions director and chief curator of the Pinajian
estate. ()
While Pinajian tried everything from erotica to realism, Falk says
he achieved his best in “lyric, rhythmic, abstract landscapes.”
Falk is also the editor of the first monograph on the artist, which
sheds light on his psychology and formative years.
Pinajian was born in 1914 in a largely Armenian-American community in
New Jersey. His parents had fled their home in Diyarbakir, present-day
Turkey, before the height of World-War-I-era mass killings of ethnic
Armenians by Ottoman Turks. His Armenian name was Ashod, while his
friends knew him as “Archie.”
Pinajian’s artistic career began in the 1930s as a comic-book
illustrator. He created “the first cross-dressing super hero” in a
series titled “Madam Fatal.”
()
He earned a Bronze Star for valor for his service in World War II
before training at the Art Students League in New York. Falk says
that Pinajian likely came into contact with the well-known American
abstract expressionists of the day.
Arthur Pinajian, Overlook Mountain, fragment, Woodstock, New York,
1955; oil on canvas
The year 1948, however, was perhaps the most pivotal in Pinajian’s
development. Falk says that Pinajian had “some sort of breakdown,”
which resulted in his writing a lengthy manifesto on what it means
to be a great artist. It was then, Falk says, that Pinajian “embarked
on his quest with single-minded focus.”
By that time, Pinajian and his sister had moved to Woodstock,
in upstate New York. Falk notes that 1948 was also the year that
Arshile Gorky, the most famous Armenian-American artist, committed
suicide. He had been in Woodstock as well, leading some to speculate
that perhaps the two had met.
In Woodstock and then in Bellport, Pinajian led a near-hermetic
existence, with art consuming nearly every waking hour until his death.
Aram Aramian, one of Pinajian’s cousins, told RFE/RL:
“When we went to the house he was always laughing and joking and
talking about the old times and about the relatives and he took a
general interest in my family. He was really pleasant; he had a good
nature about him. But all he wanted to do was paint – paint, paint,
paint. Morning, noon, and night. Every day. Three hundred and sixty
five days out of the year.”
Aramian says Pinajian gave his family several paintings over the
years to store, as the artist ran out of room.
In Woodstock, Pinajian found his muse in nearby Overlook Mountain. The
image of the double-peaked mountain became a recurring theme,
progressing from a recognizable portrayal to near complete abstraction.
Falk says he later realized that the mountain may have reminded
Pinajian of Mount Ararat in present-day Turkey, the site where Noah’s
Ark was said to have come to rest and an important symbol of Armenia.
Linda Stepanian, the president of Stephanie’s Art Gallery in
California, is one of the leading dealers of Armenian art in the
United States. In 2010, her gallery was the first to sell Pinajian’s
works commercially.
Three years later, she says she has sold paintings to
Armenian-Americans, Russians, and collectors in London and Paris.
“I am positively sure that he will be acknowledged in his ethnic
homeland one day,” she says. “That will be the next step.”
She says her prices for Pinajian range from about $3,000 to $70,000
and are only going up.
Falk puts the total value of Pinajian’s work at $30 million, a figure
that was recently revealed to the public.
He says significant interest was generated by Pinajian’s first New
York City showing, which he arranged this month. That was the site
of the highest price paid so far for a Pinajian work, $100,000.
“I still feel that the elevator is on the ground floor in terms of
value,” Falk says.
Thomas Schultz, who first stumbled upon the Pinajian cottage,
has given up his day job to become the full-time registrar of the
collection. He says “a major Los Angeles-area museum” has recently
acquired a piece. He also says a producer is pitching the story of
Pinajian’s discovery to the popular U.S. television network HBO.
But Schultz stresses that his work is about inspiration far more than
it’s about money:
“I bought the Pinajian cottage from my partner. I’m currently living
in it. I look at the trees here on the property that he captured in
some of the beautiful landscapes that we now see. So it’s almost
like I’m on sacred ground. It’s been life-changing. [My life is]
all things Pinajian, basically. I wake up every day and I think of
Pinajian and what I could do to bring the recognition to him that he
deserves. I feel like he’s finally getting that.”
Arthur Pinajian paintings
http://massispost.com/archives/8303
http://www.pinajianart.com/Default.htm
http://hyperallergic.com/63575/from-the-archives-the-first-cross-dressing-superhero/