Barbara Goldsmith

Barbara Goldsmith
Goldsmith in January 2009 at 78 years old.
Born	Barbara Joan Lubun (1931-05-18)May 18, 1931 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	June 26, 2016(2016-06-26) (aged 85) United States
Occupation	Author, journalist, philanthropist
Language	English
Genre	Journalism

Barbara Goldsmith (May 18, 1931 – June 26, 2016) was an American author, journalist, and philanthropist. She received critical and popular acclaim for her best selling books, essays, articles, and her philanthropic work. She was awarded four honoris causa doctorates, and numerous awards; been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, two Presidential Commissions, and the New York State Council on the Arts; and honored by The New York Public Library Literary Lions as well as the Literacy Volunteers, the American Academy in Rome, The Authors Guild, and the Guild Hall Academy of Arts for Lifetime Achievement. In 2009, she received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit medal from the Republic of Poland. In November 2008, Goldsmith was elected a “Living Landmark” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. She has three children and six grandchildren. The Financial Times declared that "Goldsmith is leaving a legacy—one of art, literature, friends, family and philanthropy."

Goldsmith was born Barbara Joan Lubun in New York City in 1931. She received a Bachelor of Arts in 1953 from Wellesley College, where she majored in English, after which she took art courses at Columbia University. Her first assignments as a journalist were in the art field, where she simultaneously amassed an art collection comprising mostly contemporary American painting and sculpture. In her early twenties, she wrote a series of prize-winning profiles of such Hollywood luminaries as Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, and Audrey Hepburn. In the late 1960s she initiated the “The Creative Environment” series, interviewing in-depth Marcel Breuer, I.M. Pei, George Balanchine and Pablo Picasso, among others, about their creative process.