Arthur Pinajian
“Lost and Found:
The Pinajian Discovery,”

May 1 - 3, 2013
Opening Reception:
Wednesday, May 1, 7-10pm

The Zorayan Museum
at the Cathedral of the Western Diocese
of The Armenian Church
3325 N. Glenoaks Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91504

Phone: (818) 558-7474
Hours:
Wednesday May 1, 7:00PM to 10:00PM
Thursday and Friday 1:00PM to 9:00PM.

Contact:
Linda Stepanian, Director,
Stephanie’s Gallery Inc. & Representative
of the Pinajian Estate Collection
Email:
arthurpinajian@stephaniesartgallery.com
Phone: (818) 790-4905
Website: stephaniesartgallery.com

“the unlikely discovery that has rocked the art world”

A special art exhibition, “The Pinajian Discovery,” will open on Wednesday, May 1st and run through Friday, May 3rd at the Zorayan Museum in the Cathedral of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church. The paintings have been selected from artist’s estate collection by Linda Stepanian, Director of Stephanie’s Art Gallery, in cooperation with the Zorayan Museum Committee.

In 2010 Stepanian featured the first Pinajian exhibition at the Zorayan Museum to much acclaim. Then in March 2013 the Pinajian extraordinary story exploded when the collection made its debut New York City. National and international press reports about the discovery of Arthur Pinajian — an important artist whose life’s work had been relegated to the garbage but rescued just in time — resulted in a media blitz. On ABC’s “Good Morning America” it was featured as “the unlikely discovery that has rocked the art world.” Hundreds of other news outlets around the globe ran the story, including a major piece by The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times-Valley Sun.

Art historians nationwide are still expressing astonishment that works of such caliber could have remained completely unknown. Many major private collectors have already purchased the paintings and at least six are headed to museums through Stephanie’s Gallery. Art historian Peter Hastings Falk, curator of the collection, explains that the artist was a hermit his entire life. After Pinajian’s death in 1999, five decades of accumulated artwork were found stacked up in the one-car garage and attic of the Bellport, Long Island, cottage he shared with his sister. He had left instructions for his collection to be discarded in the town dump. At the last moment an artist cousin refused to let the garbage truck haul away the paintings. Instead, Professor William Innes Homer [1929-2012], then dean of American art historians, was asked to examine the life’s work of the unknown artist and was stunned by what he found: a large body of extraordinary abstract landscape and figurative paintings by a highly gifted artist who was completely unknown in his lifetime. Homer urged Falk to head the project. Soon a team of art historians was conducting research into the life and art of Arthur Pinajian.

As a boy growing up in an Armenian community in West Hoboken, N.J., Pinajian was a completely self-trained cartoonist. During the Great Depression he became one of the pioneers in a new medium: the comic book. In 1940 he created “Madam Fatal,” the first cross-dressing superhero, for Crack Comics. After World War II, he enrolled at the Art Students League in Woodstock, N.Y. Although he knew a number of the New York Abstract Expressionists, such as Franz Kline and Philip Guston, he was largely reclusive. For 22 years his life revolved around Woodstock while he passionately pursued his painting. His admirable poetic color combinations are linked to the tonalities of his better-known fellow Armenian, Arshile Gorky [ca.1904-1948]. Late in life, he moved with his sister to Bellport. There, in a tiny bedroom-studio he strived for visual and spiritual conclusions regarding flatness and color that parallel the goals of the Abstract Expressionists.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 128-page hardcover book with essays by art historians Falk, Richard J. Boyle, and the late William Innes Homer; art critic John Perreault; conservator Jonathan Sherman; bestselling author Lawrence E. Joseph, owner of the collection; and, Pinajian’s artist-cousin, Peter Najarian. The collective essays present one of the most compelling discoveries in the history of 20th-century American art. Dr. Homer writes: “Even though Pinajian was a creative force to be reckoned with, during his lifetime he rarely exhibited or sold his paintings. Instead, he pursued his goals in isolation with the single-minded focus of a Gauguin or Cézanne, refusing to give up in the face of public indifference. In his later years he could be compared to a lone researcher in a laboratory pursuing knowledge for its own sake. His exhaustive diaries and art notes make it clear that he dedicated all of his days to his art. He was passionate and unequivocally committed.”