City mourns death of Judith Weintraub
Judith Weintraub, who along with her husband Malcolm accepted the Arts Council for Monterey County’s “Champion of the Arts” award last year for service to the community, died in early November at her home in Carmel. She was 85.
“Judy Weintraub was a remarkable woman, a woman of passion, which was about her six kids and her love for Malcolm, but also her love of art,” said former Central Coast Congressman Sam Farr. “She brought the art world into the lives of so many people in Sacramento and also was able to transfer that kind of love of the arts to people here on the Monterey Peninsula. She will be dearly missed.”
Carmel’s Carl Cherry Center for the Arts was a welcome home for Mrs. Weintraub’s energies and ideas in later life. She and her husband participated actively in the Center, recognizing it as a “unique little gem” she was determined to make not bigger, but even better.
“Not only did Judith champion our film series and attend every event we hosted, but she had an
uncanny ability to bring a really good eye to art exhibits,” said Executive Director Robert Reese. “Judith introduced us to some remarkable artists. An advocate for arts education, she was quite a mentor to artists and art galleries and always encouraged dialogue about their work.”
Courting Carmel, settling in Sacramento
The Weintraubs honeymooned in Carmel at The Highlands Inn. Finding the city by the sea to be a special, inspiring place, they returned for weekends and summer visits over the years, eventually retiring to Carmel in 1996. But first, they settled in Sacramento and raised their family there, where Mrs. Weintraub also became passionate about raising awareness and support for the arts, for culture, for the community.
“My mother knew Chicago and New York, and understood that culture and art were seminal in the lifeblood of a community and its people,” said son Anthony Weintraub. “In moving to Sacramento, she couldn’t discern the culture, so she went on a onewoman expedition to bring people along with her as she created the city she wanted to thrive.”
Mrs. Weintraub balanced raising children with raising a visual and performing arts community. She served on several community and nonprofit boards, among them the California Arts Commission, the Capital City Ballet, the Sacramento Ballet, the Crocker Art Museum Association, and the Sacramento Symphony. She later extended her influence to the board of the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Mrs. Weintraub was a patron of the arts, remembered as someone who loved championing young and emerging artists through her art consultancy business and in establishing her eponymous art gallery in what had become a thriving art enclave in downtown Sacramento. In 1986, Mrs. Weintraub and celebrated gallery owner the late Michael Himovitz founded the “Second Saturday” art walk in downtown Sacramento, which evolved into a monthly art celebration that continues today.
“Enamored with the burgeoning California Pop Art scene,” said Anthony Weintraub, “she also developed relationships with teachers in UC Davis’ emergent art program, among them the renowned Wayne Thiebaud, Gerald Walburg, and the late David Gilhooly.”
The Weintraubs maintained their affinity for “big city culture” by traveling to Europe and to New York where, for 15 years, they kept a second home, from which they enjoyed live theater, art exhibitions, and visits with two grown children and grandchildren living there. Yet once they moved to Carmel in 1996, the couple became ensconced in the coastal arts community to which Mrs. Weintraub turned her attention and devotion.
In addition to the arts, Mrs. Weintraub was committed to higher education, motivating her children’s academic pursuits, and continuing her own by taking courses at Monterey Peninsula College and via the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at CSU Monterey Bay.
When the Weintraubs accepted the Arts Council for Monterey County’s “Champion of the Arts” award last year for service to the community, she said, “Collecting visual art is a commitment, a way of life, life itself.”
In addition to her husba nd, Ma lcolm, Mrs. Weintraub is sur vived by her children — Rachel Weintraub (Allston Ja me s); Sarah LaCasse; Andrew Weintraub (Shalini Ay yagari); Anthony Weintraub (Caroline Baron); Nicholas Weintraub; and A r iel
Weintraub; as well as her six loving grandsons, Julian and Gabriel LaCasse, and Noah, Asher, Emmanuel, and Amir Weintraub.
In lieu of flowers, the Weintraub family asks that donations be made in Mrs. Weintraub’s honor to OLLI@CSUMB, a learning community for adults age 50 and older ( https:// olli.csumb.edu/donate/), or the Oakland Museum of California ( https://museumca.org/annual-fund).