Her literary efforts led her to publish an insightful memoir, Jump in the Waves, as well as several essays. Growing as We Age, is an essay that outlines her indomitable spirit to continue being creative through her later years. The First and Second Piatigorsky Cup books cover the International Grandmaster Chess Tournaments hosted by Mr and Mrs Piatigorsky.
Books
Editorial Reviews
A memoir by the widow of the great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. A Rothschild, Jacqueline found that name to be as much a hindrance as a privilege. Sheltered from birth in Talleyrand's palace overlooking the Parisian Tuileries Gardens, young Jacqueline was shunned by parents too busy to nurture, and terrorized by her nanny. Thus her opening: ""Fear is the story of my life. Envy, ungratefulness, confusion filled my youth.""
...The point of Jacqueline's memoir, in the end, is how love was able to solidify her life and overcome the awful fears, anguish, and feelings of worthlessness that were cultivated in her as a child. Even her escape from her situation--playing chess in a comer with her sister for hours--became part of her salvation, as in later years she became a prominent figure in the world of grandmaster chess (despite being told by tutors that she would never succeed at anything, she rose to be one of the top ten women chess players in the US). A story, then, of the triumph of hope over futility. The author glories in her transferral from ""material richness to the richness of art and to real richness, human richness.
Jacqueline Piatigorsky's insightful, poetic description, written after she reached the age of 90 years, brings into sharp relief a welcome contrast to the prevailing myth that identifies all of the oldest old with the sickest and least fortunate. Here is a woman who provides us with a living portrait of how she meets and manages the hazards of accumulating age.
Jacqueline Piatigorsky is not alone in the adaptability she displays as she travels through time. Her story will no doubt sensitize the reader - young, middle-aged and old - to recognize others and to face the future with an open mind. The message of this essay embodies the vital ingredients gerontologists have distilled from their studies of successful aging: Optimism, enthusiasm, life-long learning, search for new challenges, and genuine joy in accomplishment. Or, in Jacqueline Piatigorsky's own words, the message of this extraordinary woman of the 20th and 21st centuries is: "keep growing, be lucky, grow until the end."
Lissy Jarvik, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, UCLA
and Distinguished Physician Emeritus U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs.
Stone Comes to Life
A catalog of Jacqueline Piatigorsky’s sculptures and drawings for the show, Stone Comes to Life curated by Yossi Govrin and hosted at Arena 1 Gallery at the Santa Monica Art Studios, Santa Monica, CA in 2014.
The catalog highlights 45 pages of the sculptors life’s work.
To help bring to the United States chess of the highest quality in the world, Mrs. Gregor Piatigorsky and her husband, the world renowned cellist, created the Piatigorsky Cup as a symbol of excellence in chess. Along with the trophy went the finest playing conditions and the highest prizes ever offered for any chess event. For the first time since 1932, a world chess champion appeared in an American tournament when Tigran Petrosian, USSR, joined seven other of the greatest international grandmasters in a month of competition at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Players, in addition to Petrosian, included Paul Keres, also of the Soviet Union; Miguel Najdorf and Oscar Panno of Argentina; Fridrik Olafsson of Iceland; Svetozar Gligoric of Yugoslavia; and Samuel Reshevsky and Pal Benko of the United States. This book contains the complete score of all 56 games played by these eight international grandmasters. Each of the players annotated the game he considered his best and Reshevsky annotated the rest. The book is edited by Isaac Kashdan. Many of these games are likely to become classics and every chess player, from novice to master, will be able to learn fine points of the game from this volume.
Ten of the world's strongest chess players competed in the strongest chess tournament ever held in the US. All ten of the players have provided annotations to their games. Every one of the 90 games in the tournament is annotated. All the games have been converted to modern Algebraic Notation with diagrams. The games are annotated by Jan H. Donner, Robert Fischer, Borislav Ivkov, Bent Larsen, Miguel Najdorf, Tigran Petrosian, Lajos Portisch, Samuel Reshevsky, Boris Spassky, and Wolfgang Unzicker. Introduction by Gregor Piatigorsky. Edited by Isaac Kashdan with a new foreword by Sam Sloan.
