PORTRAIT OF A FATHER

by Joan Simon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 15, 1960

This is the story of the man Saul Bettelheimer. It is also the story of an era and a dynasty. In the world of arts, the name of Bettelheimer is synonymous with great affluence and discernment. Unable to paint himself, the scion of a multimillionaire New York Jewish family devotes his life to the collection and subsidization of fine paintings. A Victorian in morals, an avant garde, modern in his addiction to Freudian analysis, Saul Bettelheimer enforces his powerful personality on the artists whom he patronizes, on his beautiful wife Madeline, and on his daughters who love and fear him. His world of perfectly appointed town houses, of luxurious country estates preserves an atmosphere totally incongruous with the modern scene of split level living. It is a world in which servants and family bow to his eccentric beckonings, in which there is time for elegant conversation, in which children commit only minor rebellions. It is a world in which Saul Bettelheimer reigns and his beautiful wife, at once sophisticated and naive, acquiesces, exerting her power through her beauty, grateful for the masterful commands of her master. And bolstered by power and possession, it is a world in which fear and death has its special dominion to which even Saul Bettelheimer ultimately must bend. Loosely written, there is a Proustian complexity here in the reminiscences of Saul Bettelheimer's daughter as she pays homage to her distinguished parent (who will remind many of a celebrated New York art patron), the formidable and pathetic man of paradoxes.

Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1960

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1960

Categories: FICTION