NEW YORK, NY.- Paul Holdengräber, founder and director of The New York Public Library’s LIVE from the NYPL cultural series, is leaving the Library after 14 years to return to Los Angeles.

He has been nominated the Founding Executive Director of The Onassis Foundation LA (OLA), an outpost of the Onassis headquarters in Athens that will begin its work as a “center of dialogue” in early 2019. His last day at the Library will be December 31.

A “curator of public curiosity,” Holdengräber has interviewed hundreds of authors, poets, journalists, musicians, artists, and celebrities in his role at the Library, always working to “make the Lions roar” and engage thinkers from all walks of life in spirited conversations, discussions, debates, and performances. His goal, and the goal and mission of the program he founded, was to provide “cognitive theatre.”

Over the years, Holdengräber—who has been honored by the French and Austrian governments for his contributions to the arts—has interviewed Jay-Z, Patti Smith, Zadie Smith, Christopher Hitchens, RuPaul, Elvis Costello, Helen Mirren, Elizabeth Gilbert, Tom Wolfe, Harry Belafonte, John Waters, George Clinton, Wes Anderson, Spike Lee, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Pete Townshend, Maira Kalman, Javier Marias, Salman Rushdie, Pico Iyer, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Anish Kapoor, Shaquille O’Neill, and Werner Herzog, to name only a few.

Over the course of Holdengräber’s tenure at the Library, about 200,000 people attended interviews at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, while countless others continue to watch interviews in a variety of post-event formats, including video, podcast, and transcriptions. Several videos have millions of views.

“Paul Holdengräber has been the face, heart, and soul of the Library’s signature public program for over a decade, bringing a unique interviewing style, insatiable curiosity, and intense enthusiasm to every conversation,” said New York Public Library President Anthony W. Marx. “The depth and breadth of his wonderfully diverse discussions have cemented the Library’s reputation as a center for free, open public discourse, discussion and debate. We thank Paul for all he has done to forward the Library’s mission, and while we will miss him, wish him the best of luck on his return to Los Angeles.”

Prior to his actual interviews at the Library, Holdengräber often inspired his guests by partnering with the Library’s curators to showcase treasures from the Library’s extraordinary and extensive research collections. Some of these tours even inspired future works: for example, musician Patti Smith’s experience of touching Virginia Woolf’s walking stick—an item preserved in the Library’s Berg Collection—became a part of her book M Train.

Once on stage, Holdengräber started every conversation by asking his guests for a seven-word bio: Joan Didion stated, for example, that “seven words do not yet define me.” Holdengräber’s own seven were provided to him by his mother, who told him as a young boy, “We have two ears and one mouth,” a notion he put into practice during his hundreds of conversations and interviews.

"My objective in recruiting Paul to The New York Public Library was to turn the great building at Fifth and 42nd Street into an even more vibrant crossroads in the City's intellectual and cultural life,” said former New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc. “The charge I presented to him was ‘to oxygenate’ the Library. He did that and more, and did it with levels of dynamism, creativity and brilliance I couldn't have imagined."

“When you have the privilege of being interviewed by Paul Holdengräber, it has the effect of rejuvenating your intellectual life,” said George Saunders. “Everything seems fresher and more interesting for a few days afterwards. He is one of the most brilliant minds in America, or anywhere.”

“It's been such an honor to have been interviewed by Paul,” said Neil Gaiman. “He knows, as far as I can tell, everything there is and everyone important, and more than that, he has the kind of mind that connects everything he knows with everything else he knows. He joins the dots, and dots the i's and eyes us all clearly and brilliantly, with the joy of a learned cosmopolitan who has come to walk among us bringing wisdom and love of libraries.”

“Paul Holdengräber is that rare interviewer who makes you ask even more questions about yourself than he is,” said Patton Oswalt.

“Paul Holdengräber has been . . . bringing to its cultural programming his unique brand of drive, flair and gaiety, and his will be very big shoes to fill,” said Salman Rushdie. “ . . . I know him to be a great interviewer as well, with a startlingly broad and deep cultural range. New York will miss him very much. I will miss his ping-pong skills, too.”

“From the first seconds of our conversation on stage to the final moments, Paul’s interview was not just a conversation, it was an art form,” asserted Jane Mayer after her interview last spring. “Full of unexpected and inventive turns, he was an amazing intellectual tour de force. The NYPL and I were lucky to be in his artful hands.”

In addition to his work at The New York Public Library, Holdengräber sits on The Sun Valley Writers Conference Board of Directors, The Onassis Foundation Board of Directors, and The Paul & Daisy Soros Board of Directors. He hosts the podcast “A Phone Call from Paul” on The Literary Hub, and has had interviews published in prominent publications such as BRICK Magazine and The Paris Review.

Before coming to the Library, Holdengräber was the Founder & Director of “The Institute for Art & Cultures” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and, previously, a Fellow at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He also taught at various universities including Williams College and Claremont Graduate University. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University.

The Library will continue to host several popular signature public program series such as Author Talks, Library After Hours, Art Talks, and Thinking Out Loud among others while reviewing the transition and the LIVE brand.