About
The Full Story
The Saltzman Collection reflects a lifelong dialogue with art. Ralph and Muriel Saltzman began collecting together as newlyweds, through weekend gallery visits that gradually evolved into a sustained commitment to artists and institutions in the United States and abroad. Guided less by fashion than by instinct, they acquired works that invited daily engagement: sculptures that animate the garden, drawings and photographs that punctuate domestic space, and paintings that reward slow looking.
Eclectic by design, the collection nonetheless coheres around a few enduring constants—craftsmanship, presence, and a human scale that invites conversation. Many works were acquired directly from artists and long-standing gallery relationships; many have been presented in museum contexts; and many bear the quiet patina of having been lived with, reflecting a collection shaped for a home as much as for the white cube.
The collection includes significant works by leading modern and contemporary artists such as Pablo Picasso, Claude & François-Xavier Lalanne, Niki de Saint Phalle, Mickalene Thomas, Kiki Smith, William Kentridge, Antony Gormley, Fernando Botero, Matthew Barney, Mel Bochner, Tom Wesselmann, Jim Dine, Deborah Butterfield, Barry Flanagan, Annie Leibovitz, Michele Oka Doner, Tony Cragg, Ernest Trova, and more.
At its core, the Saltzmans’ philosophy is simple: art belongs in life. That belief extends beyond the home through ongoing support for museums and arts education in South Florida, including the Norton Museum of Art and local school initiatives that bring practicing artists into classrooms. Their hope has always been that the joy, curiosity, and perspective art has brought to their family might be shared with future generations of viewers and makers.
The Saltzman Collection remains an evolving snapshot of modern and contemporary art—one that privileges discovery, dialogue, and the deeply personal act of selection. As the family often says, they are drawn to works simply “because we like them.”
