Peter Neagoe
Peter Neagoe (7 November 1881 – 28 October 1960) was an American writer and painter who came from Transylvania. He focused much of his work on Romanian folk life and culture.
He grew up in Săliște, Sibiu and Blaj, studied art in Bucharest with Constantin Brâncuși, and also studied philosophy and law. Between 1901 and 1903 he left Romania, lived briefly in Germany, and then moved to America. He arrived in New York City in 1906, worked various jobs, and continued his art studies at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. In 1911 he married Anna Frankeul, a painter.
After World War I he returned to Europe and settled in Paris, where he encountered Dadaist and Surrealist artists and reunited with Brâncuși. He wrote The Saint of Montparnasse, published after his death in 1965. He also spent summers at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, where he had spent time in his youth.
In 1933 Neagoe went back to the United States, publishing two novels and a volume of stories about Transylvanian and Romanian history in the next few years. He visited Romania in 1937 as a guest of the Romanian Writers’ Society. During World War II he worked for the U.S. Army Intelligence Bureau. His writing slowed during the war, but he published an autobiography of his boyhood, A Time to Keep, in 1949.
Neagoe counted James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein among his friends. Although his major work was well reviewed, it did not attract broad public appeal, and many of his short stories remained unpublished at his death. His papers, with those of his wife, are held at Syracuse University, which also offers a competitive creative writing award in his name. He died in Woodstock, New York.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:27 (CET).