Closing on a House, and a Life's Story, Told in Art
Hyfler/Rosner
March 14, 2007
NY Times
Corey Kilgannon
Closing on a House, and a Life's Story, Told in Art
BELLPORT, N.Y., March 7 - The run-down little cottage on
Country Club Road seemed like the perfect investment: a
two-bedroom on a half-acre plot a couple of blocks from the
bay and from the quaint village here on the South Shore of
Long Island. The price, as is, was around $300,000.
Larry Joseph, a writer and businessman in Beverly Hills,
would put up the money, and his friend Thomas Schultz, a
Bellport native, would renovate the house, figuring they
could put the place right back on the market for north of
$400,000. The sellers said they were also welcome to the
paintings and drawings left behind by Arthur Pinajian, an
obscure artist who lived in the house with his sister for
decades until they each died at 85, he in 1999, she last
year.
The two men shrugged and peeked inside the drafty single-car
garage out back, finding a rotting compost pile of art.
There were thousands of canvases damaged by mildew, water
and vermin. Then they climbed into the attic and looked
briefly - or maybe not so briefly - at the stash of erotic
drawings of women.
Mr. Joseph and Mr. Schultz are not big art people, and
because of financial uncertainties, they considered backing
out of the purchase. But they were intrigued by the surprise
trove of neglected art - dusty discards that seemed destined
for a Dumpster.
Mr. Schultz, 40, an aide to a local assemblywoman, started
sorting through the artist's belongings, opening the
decrepit rolled-up canvases in the garage and reading the
yellowing journals. He stared at the deft sketches of models
and at the faded drops of paint on the wooden floor in the
artist's tiny bedroom, adjacent to the sister's bedroom.
There was Mr. Pinajian's Bronze Star for valor in World War
II. His illustrations for 1930s comic books that are now
commanding tidy sums on various Web sites that sell
collectibles. Sketches of soldiers from the war, paintings
of Woodstock artist colonies from the 1950s and '60s,
paintings of Bellport through the years. And there were the
dated journal entries in which Mr. Pinajian explained his
techniques and theories of art.
"We had no idea of the worth or artistic merit of any of
this stuff; it was basically a big mess," Mr. Schultz said.
"But we started to realize that we were staring at the life
and work and passion of an artist who had been painting
every day for more than 50 years. And we said to each other,
'There's no way we're going to let this collection get
thrown away.' "
And so, a simple real estate venture in a sleepy village has
turned into a mammoth and mysterious curatorial project of
sorting through more than 3,000 pieces of art and trying to
figure out what it means, what it is worth and who wants it.
Mr. Joseph, 53, said the men planned to show the collection
to an art appraiser this month and were considering turning
the cottage into a kind of Pinajian museum.
"Arthur Pinajian had very little exposure in his lifetime,
and right now we're just opening it up and sorting through
it," Mr. Schultz said. "Whatever the artistic value, the
collection is a fascinating window into the life and work of
a man we basically know nothing about."
There is no mention of Mr. Pinajian in major compendiums of
modern American art, and a Google search of his name and
"artist" turned up nothing relevant. After a viewing of
several photographs of Mr. Pinajian's works, Marina Whitman,
an art appraiser in New York City, said that it seemed
doubtful that they would become "part of the canon of art
history."
But some of his original illustrations for comic books, she
added, could have appreciated in value, since the comics
themselves have gained status as collectibles. Many comic
books that Mr. Pinajian - who also worked under various pen
names - helped illustrate in the late 1930s have become
collectibles.
Despite Mr. Pinajian's obscurity, Ms. Whitman said a museum
could "stimulate some interest in the works" as a lifetime
body of his work. After closing on the house in December,
Mr. Schultz loaded the art into a van and took it to a
vacant office space in nearby Patchogue, where he began
unrolling more canvases. There were paintings of women,
still lifes and abstract landscapes. There was a cowboy
illustration done for Western comics; a sketch pad from
1955; journal entries on scraps of paper; quick pen drawings
of figures; and self-portraits in pencil on loose-leaf
paper.
There were numerous depictions of women reclining in fields
and numerous erotic drawings of women on couches. There was
an ink drawing of a dancer on a page of classified
advertisements from an Aug. 14, 1974, issue of a newspaper.
One recent day, Mr. Schultz, who said he took a few art
classes in college and dabbled in painting, picked up a
rolled-up bundle of canvases from the floor, cut away twine
and unrolled them on a table, releasing a musty odor. Bugs
scattered across the rumpled canvas of a moody landscape
from 1964.
"It feels like an architectural dig," he said. "Is there
excellent art here? I don't know, but it's like reading a
novel. Each time I open stuff, I'm amazed by something
different. My wife is a psychologist and to her this is one
big Rorschach test."
Mr. Joseph, who said he had written a couple of articles
about art but had never bought any pieces worth mentioning,
said he felt "like this artist is somehow watching me to see
if I handle his legacy properly."
"This was a simple real estate venture, to buy a little
house and flip it and make a little money," he said. "Now it
has led us into a real detective story of this relatively
unknown artist and all this work that we're trying to get a
handle on, as well as the story behind the art."
John Aramian, 48, a cousin of the Pinajians who helped sell
the house, said the family already had plenty of Mr.
Pinajian's paintings and felt that Mr. Joseph and Mr.
Schultz "had a better chance than us of getting this
underappreciated artist some recognition."
Arthur Pinajian grew up in Union City, N.J., and worked as
an illustrator before serving in central Europe during World
War II. After the Army, Mr. Pinajian left the illustrating
profession and became a painter, but sold few canvases. He
relied on his sister, a secretary, for financial support.
Their mother died young, and the siblings grew close, living
together their entire lives, neither marrying nor having
children, according to Mr. Aramian. They moved to Bellport
in the 1970s.
"He thought he was going to be the next Picasso," Mr.
Aramian said. "They believed he would become famous and this
would all pay off for them one day, but it just never
happened. So he became frustrated and withdrew from
everything and just painted."
Hoodini
> John Aramian, 48, a cousin of the Pinajians who helped sell
> the house, said the family already had plenty of Mr.
> Pinajian's paintings and felt that Mr. Joseph and Mr.
> Schultz "had a better chance than us of getting this
> underappreciated artist some recognition."
Jeeze, how indifferent and unconcerned could they be about the value
of all those artworks and the legacy of their cousin. What if the
purchasers simply chose to throw it all in a dumpster?
What a goldmine the purchasers lucked into despite the unexpected task
of doing right by the artist and his art.
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Gotta Find My Roogalator