Artine Artinian

He was immortalized as a fictional character by his Bard colleague Mary McCarthy in the novel The Groves of Academe (1952) and by his friend Gore Vidal in the play The Best Man (1960).

He was able to attend Bowdoin College (1931) with support from his customers, and in later years, he returned the favor by establishing a scholarship fund for needy students there.

He donated a large amount of his collection of manuscripts and art to Bowdoin College and gave artwork to several universities and museums.

His portrait collection, including works by André Gill, Henri Demare, Manuel Luque, Émile Cohl, Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Anthony Coffey and Paul Signac, is currently housed at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin.

Native of Bulgaria, emigrant to Massachusetts at thirteen, you epitomize the courage and fearlessness, the grit and determination characteristic of your Armenian ancestors, long victims of oppression, in rising from bootblack to scholar.