Pete Najarian (writer)

Pete Najarian
Born	1940 (age 75–76) Union City, New Jersey

Peter "Pete" Najarian (born 1940 in Union City, New Jersey) is an American author of three novels, a collection of short works, and two non-fiction novels. He is also a painter and sculptor, and a cousin of painter Art Pinajian.

Biography

After graduating from Rutgers University in 1958, where he roomed with the poet Robert Pinsky, Najarian was a Social Investigator for the New York City Department of Welfare, where his caseload was in Harlem.

He then lived in London for three years, where he taught English Studies in Kingsway Day College, and Film Study for the Education Department of the British Film Institute.

He returned to the States when he received the Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University for the academic year 1967-1968.

He received an M.A. in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University in 1970, where he studied with his friend, the novelist Leo Litwak.

He was a Fulbright Lecturer in Soviet Armenia in the academic year 1988-1989. While in Armenia he helped to recover survivors after the earthquake, and the short work called “The Girl” in his collection "The Great American Loneliness" is about his experience there.

He has taught creative writing in San Francisco State University, Wayne State University, Scripps College for Women, University of California at San Diego, University of Hawaii, University of California at Davis, and University of California at Berkeley. He contributed to the Serving House Journal of Literary Arts,^[1] and to a compilation titled The Sixties,^[2] edited by Peter Stine and published by Wayne State University Press.

He received a Grant for Creative Non-fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000. His works were cited during a discussion of Armenian American literature^[3] at a symposium celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Society for Armenian Studies.

Najarian is also a plein air painter and a sculptor, and his work has been exhibited in the Artist’s Union in Yerevan, Armenia; in the Hearst Gallery^[4] at Saint Mary’s College of California; in the Napa Valley Museum in California; and at Berkeley Public Library.^[5]

His last four books are illustrated with his drawings and paintings.

The Paintings of Art Pinajian, A Family Story

The Paintings of Art Pinajian, A Family Story, is an illustrated non-fiction novel by Pete Najarian about his cousin, Art Pinajian.

As Najarian tells the story, Pinajian had verbally left his paintings to him but left no written will. His book recounts how these paintings were taken from him after Pinajian's death and later sold to Lawrence E. Joseph, who then hired Peter Hastings Falk to promote them. The book seeks to prove that Pinajian never wanted his work “thrown into the garbage,” as was stated by Falk in his promotional book, Pinajian, Master of Abstraction Discovered,^[6] which states, "Pinajian left instructions for his collection to be discarded in the town dump."

Najarian's book also seeks to prove in the course of Pinajian's letters to him that his cousin was in fact a "most sane human being" who was a "popular and attractive and humorous man and who was out-going and socially responsible and whose isolation in his later years was only a result of his poverty."

From Art’s letters to his cousin Pete: "It is between me and myself that I work now…. My work is a reflection of what I want my life to be…. To understand the totality of art is to arrive at its creation…. If you are conscious of Totality, time will coalesce everything into one…. Searching for forms is terrific therapy and makes me feel good and refreshed…. No one notices, of course, except the creator and sometimes not even he.”

Pinajian's art was subsequently valued at $30 million.^[7]

Bibliography

• Voyages,^[8] a novel, published by Pantheon Books, 1971
• "Wash Me On Home, Mama," a novel, published by Berkeley Poets Co-op, 1978
• "Daughters of Memory,^[9]" a novel, published by City Miner, 1986
• "The Great American Loneliness,^[10]" a collection, published by Blue Crane Books, 1998
• "The Artist and His Mother,^[11]" a non-fiction novel, published by The Press at California State University, Fresno
• "The Paintings of Art Pinajian, A Family Story," a non-fiction novel published by Regent Press,^[12] 2015

References

1. "Peter Najarian: Painting the Model".
2. "The Sixties".
3. "Society for Armenian Studies Marks 40th Anniversary in Yerevan".
4. "East Bay Artists Capture More Than Meets the Eye".
5. "The Paintings of Pete Najarian at Berkeley Public Library".
6. "Pinajian, Master of Abstraction Discovered".
7. "Arthur Pinajian Art Worth $30 Million Found In Garage".
8. "Voyages".
9. "An Armenian Man and His Mother".
10. "The Great American Loneliness".
11. "The Artist and His Mother".
12. "Regent Press".