Crowded Memorial for Gottlieb
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 6/17/2002
An overflow crowd of more than 500 filled New York City's Cooper Union June 12 to pay tribute to former Abrams president and art publishing pioneer Paul Gottlieb, who died June 5 at age 67 (News, June 10).
There were people from the worlds of art and publishing, authors and artists, and a dozen family members, including Gottlieb's mother. Twenty people, including his widow, Elisabeth Scharlatt of Algonquin; his son Nicholas; authors David McCullough, Hugh Nissenson and Pete Hamill; and Agnes Gund of the Museum of Modern Art, took to the podium to pay tribute to Gottlieb's warmth, humanity, love of art and publishing, and zest for life. Thames & Hudson chief Thomas Neurath brought a team from London to pay special tribute to a publishing rival and friend; and two longtime Abrams staffers, Karyn Gerhard and Julie DeMatteo, recalled a boss who took time to teach a three-year-old the alphabet song.
Hamill remembered Gottlieb as a man passionately devoted to art who had helped, by the books he published, to bring great art into the lives of millions of people who might not otherwise have known it.
