Jacob's Ladder: From the Bottom of the Warsaw Ghetto to the Top of New York's Art World [Hardcover]

Jacob D. Weintraub (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 1994

This fascinating memoir by a Holocoust survivor who went onto become a ajor New York art dealer, provides an inside look at the post-war modern art world. Weintraub's account of his experience in the Warsaw Ghetto is gripping, and he pulls no punches in describing the "high and mighty" on the New York museum scene and the lessons he has learned about business success in America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Weintraub here describes his 40-year career in the art world, which began in 1947, shortly after he and his wife, Barbara, immigrated to the U.S. from Poland. After making his reputation as a collector and dealer of German Expressionist art, he opened the Weintraub Gallery in Manhattan in 1967. The middle third of his memoir is a harrowing account of life in the WWII Warsaw Ghetto-Weintraub lost his entire family. He and his wife escaped to the "Aryan" side and posed as Catholics under the names Tadeusz and Mentlak Winiawski until the war ended. Barbara died in 1975 and Weintraub married his present wife, Bronka Rabin, in 1979. His blunt opinions on the art business are a curious foil to his account of the Holocaust. Both sets of experiences are linked in a concluding quote: "[Museum] curators are not in my view a higher class of human species than dealers. As a survivor of the Holocaust, I remain forever suspicious of any social scheme that seeks to place one class of individuals above another." Illustrations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: Madison Books; First Edition edition (November 8, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568330359
• ISBN-13: 978-1568330358
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,474,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars autobiography;, June 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Jacob's Ladder: From the Bottom of the Warsaw Ghetto to the Top of New York's Art World (Hardcover)

This is much more than an autobiography, it's also a lesson in history. It's a story of survival and the will to live from Jewish imprisonment to the heights of achievement. I enjoyed it and learned from it.