What it’s actually like
In a district full of desert light, Pejman Gallery at 7130 East Main Street sells Mediterranean light. The walls are mostly the work of one painter, Bob Pejman: European and old-world vistas, many of them Mediterranean, built of weathered stone and strong sunlight, the light pushed a little brighter than life and the colors a little richer. What you notice after a minute is that there is nobody in any of them. “There are no people in my paintings,” Pejman has said, “so you can imagine yourself in the scenes.” He calls the style romantic realism, and cites Alma-Tadema, Thomas Cole and Maxfield Parrish as influences.
The gallery has been established since 1988, and it is a painter’s showroom in the most literal sense: originals by Pejman, alongside the hand-embellished giclées published by his own company, Pejman Editions. Around them hang original oils by other American and European painters working in a classical vein and sculpture by Gaylord Ho. In the last few years Pejman has also turned toward his adopted region, with a line of stylized Southwest paintings and some more contemporary work.
It is an unpretentious room. The prices span an original oil to an embellished edition of the same image, and the staff are happy to explain the difference, which matters here more than in most galleries.
What to buy
An original Pejman oil. The European and Mediterranean vistas are the core of his reputation and the gallery’s best walls.
A hand-embellished giclée. Pejman Editions’ signature product — a canvas print reworked by hand — and the affordable way into his work.
A stylized-Southwest painting. The newer series, and the one most likely to look at home in an Arizona house.
A Gaylord Ho sculpture. The gallery’s main three-dimensional offering, for a shelf or pedestal beside the paintings.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
Pejman Gallery is on the eastern half of the Main Street block between Marshall Way and Scottsdale Road, near Mainview Gallery and J Klein Gallery, with The Legacy Gallery at the corner. Main Street’s curb spaces are short-term and usually taken; the free Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard is a flat five-minute walk east, and the Old Town on foot note maps the grid. The Main Street Arts District guide covers the rest of the row.
The 2026 gallery guide lists hours of Monday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m., or by appointment, so this is one of the Main Street rooms you can visit on a Sunday afternoon. Thursday’s ArtWalk is the street’s busy night; come by day for a proper look at originals and editions side by side.
Eat while you’re there
Malee’s Thai Bistro is directly across the street at 7131 and has fed the gallery row since 1987. The Sugar Bowl is a block north on Scottsdale Road, and the Rusty Spur Saloon across Scottsdale Road pours in a 1921 bank. Los Olivos on Second Street is the Sonoran dinner.
How it got here
Bob Pejman’s road to Main Street ran through Vienna, England and corporate America. The son of an operatic composer and a concert musician, he spent his early childhood in Vienna and came to the United States by way of England in 1976. He was painting by seven and winning awards in group shows by sixteen, but he chose business over art school, graduated from Rutgers, and worked his way up through software companies to become vice president of marketing at Information Resources Inc., a global market-research firm.
In 1988 he came back to art from the dealer’s side, opening a gallery that represented European masters. Being around their work started him painting again. From 1991 he studied for two years with the Russian painter Anatoly Ivanov, who steered him toward old-master technique, then at the Art Students League of New York and with the impressionist Ovanes Berberian. His first one-man show came in 1993; in 1995 he founded Pejman Editions to publish hand-embellished limited editions of his paintings; and in 1999 he left the corporate world to paint and publish full time. His images went on to be woven into jacquard tapestries in France and published as murals and prints by companies in Europe and the U.S.
The gallery’s website dates its establishment to 1988 and has at times named locations in both Scottsdale and Short Hills, New Jersey; Scottsdale’s Main Street, where the gallery describes itself as part of “Gallery Row” in the historic arts district, is its home today. The street’s 1980s and 1990s trade in traditional representational painting suited a romantic realist, and more recently Pejman has answered the setting with a Stylized-Southwest series — Mediterranean light, finally, giving way to the desert’s.