Arthur L. Carter (born December 24, 1931 in New York City) is an investment banker, publisher, and artist.
He graduated from Brown University in 1953 with a degree in French literature.
He worked for Lehman Brothers for a period of time, but after taking a break to study at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, he started Carter, Berlind, & Weill in 1960, which eventually grew into Shearson Loeb Rhoades, later merging with Lehman to form Shearson Lehman Brothers.
After ten years, he sold his stake in Carter Berlind and tried his hand at several other businesses. Eventually, deciding that he wanted to run a newspaper, he started the Litchfield County Times, when no existing paper met his criteria. In December 1985, he was able to buy a controlling stake in The Nation. In 1987, he founded the weekly paper The New York Observer, which covered New York culture and politics. In 1995, he sold The Nation, in 2001, he sold the Litchfield County Times, and he sold The Observer in 2006.
In 2008, New York University renamed its journalism department the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Carter had previously taught at NYU as an adjunct professor of philosophy and journalism.
He has three children Jon Carter, Whendy Carter and Ellen Carter from his first marriage to Linda Schweitzer. In 1967, he married Dixie Carter, and they eventually had two daughters, Ginna and Mary Dixie. They divorced ten years later. He has twelve grandchildren.
He is also an accomplished artist: his paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in Tennessee, Rhode Island, and Paris, among other places.