Adolph Alfred Taubman (1924–2015) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is most famous as a shopping mall magnate and for buying and rescuing Sotheby’s, the British auction house.
Born in Pontiac, Michigan, Taubman had to find work to help support the family at age nine after his parents lost everything in the Depression. He later dropped out of studying architecture at the University of Michigan and Lawrence Technological University.
Taubman began building shopping complexes in the 1950s when Americans were moving to the suburbia and falling in love with the idea of mega shops. During his long career, he owned real estate, A&W root beer, cinema theaters, office and apartment towers, department stores, and many of America’s best-known malls.
Taubman purchased and revived the fortunes of Sotheby’s, the British auction house. He was later implicated in a commission-fixing scandal involving the rival auction house Christie’s. This scandal rocked the art auction world, and Taubman was imprisoned for nine months in 2002.
Taubman is a prominent benefactor of the University of Michigan, the Detroit-area schools, and Lawrence Technological University.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by A. Alfred Taubman
There is more similarity in the marketing challenge of selling a precious painting by Degas and a frosted mug of root beer than you ever thought possible.
—A. Alfred Taubman
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