Paul Gottlieb

Paul Gottlieb served as Board Chair of the Academy of American Poets in 2002. Gottlieb, who graduated from Swarthmore College in 1956, was the former publisher and editor-in-chief of Harry N. Abrams. He started his publishing career at the American Heritage Publishing Company in 1962, later becoming its publisher then president from 1970 to 1975. He served for two decades as editor-in-chief of Abrams, making it the leading art publisher in the United States under his leadership. He retired in 2001 as publisher, president, and editor-in-chief while remaining vice chair of Abrams’s French parent company La Martinière Groupe. He resigned from the latter post, next becoming executive director of the nonprofit photography publisher Aperture shortly before his death. 

Gottlieb also served on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and chaired several of the museum’s committees. He died in New York City on June 5, 2002.