GLENDALE — Beginning March 2, the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance (ADAA) and the William Saroyan Foundation will host an exhibit of William Saroyan paintings at the new home of The Antaeus Theatre Company.
The grand opening of the theatre began on Thursday with an “Open Stages” weekend of free events including tours, performances, coffee mornings and family-friendly workshops. The paintings are being offered to the public and will be on display in Antaeus’s inaugural gallery through May 7.
William Saroyan (1908-1981) was a world-renowned writer of plays, short stories and novels. He burst upon the literary scene at age 26 with his short story, “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” followed by the publication by Random House of a collection of short stories. In four years he published six books, and had three plays running simultaneously on Broadway.
His career soared to stratospheric heights in the 1940’s, when Saroyan’s work was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. He continued to write and publish prodigiously until his death in 1981. Saroyan was also an exceptional visual artist, producing a sizable archive of drawings and paintings. He said: “The drawings and paintings were part of my writing, part of my finding out about writing, and about how I would live my life and write my writing.” The art critic, Quinn Gomex-Heitberg, wrote the following: “Saroyan never considered abandoning the written word for painting; rather he believed that the two acts functioned together.”
The William Saroyan Foundation, founded by Saroyan himself in 1960, continues to provide funding to a high-impact literary prize for novelists and a playwriting prize administered by The Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance, and is now introducing the world to Saroyan’s artwork.
For more information about the paintings and ADAA, go to www.armeniandrama.org or email armeniandrama@gmail.com. For more information on the William Saroyan Foundation visit www.williamsaroyanfoundation.org.
