In an expansive showcase of modern art, the Nassau County Museum of Art opened two exhibitions: Selections from the Saltzman Family Collection and Long Island Collects Modern Art, on Saturday, July 25, under the title The Moderns: Chagall, Degas, Léger, Miró, Picasso and more. Two Port Washington families have works from their art collections on display in the exhibitions. The exhibitions will remain on view through November 8.
The Selections from the Saltzman Family Collection exhibit continues the celebration of the museum’s 25th anniversary with an exhibition of early 20th-century modern art. The exhibition honors the museum’s founding president, the late Ambassador Arnold A. Saltzman, who during his life, formed one of America’s great private collections of early modernist painting and sculpture. The exhibition includes works by well known modernists such as Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Constantin Brancusi, Edgar Degas, Robert Delaunay, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger and many others.
Eric Saltzman, of Sands Point, said about the collection and its founder, his father, the late Hon. Arnold A. Saltzman. “A single art history class in college sparked Arnold’s great passion for art. Looking led to questioning; questioning to more study and to understanding, and then a lifelong dedication to collecting. He had a brilliant, sophisticated eye and he loved the chase. As important to him was sharing his deep appreciation of creative work with all around him. He donated his important collection of German Expressionist works to the National Gallery of Art, so, as he put it, ‘the American people could enjoy it forever.'”
This exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art shows a broad range of the works Arnold collected, from the most famous (Picasso, Miró, Chagall, Brancusi) to those admired by connoisseurs (Munter, Kupka, Jawlensky, Rodchenko). “The impetus for this exhibition is the Saltzman family’s anticipation that it will inspire others to experience the beauty, complexity and pleasure that observing creative master works can provide,” said Eric Saltzman. “If it starts a young person on the path to studying and collecting art, well, Arnold would have loved that, too.”
Port Washington residents Dr. Todd and Jill Cohen have loaned several works from their art collection to Long Island Collects Modern Art. They have lived in Port Washington since 1992. Dr. Cohen, a cardiologist and the director of clinical cardiac electrophysiology at Winthrop University Hospital, has been a trustee of the museum since 2007. When speaking about Saltzman, Cohen said, “Arnold was an ambassador to five presidents. He was inspiring to me because he was passionate about the museum that he founded. We wanted this show as a tribute to him. People will be able to see original works of Picasso, Matisse and other fantastic works of art that everyone should come and see.”
Long Island Collects Modern Art, organized by guest curator Franklin Hill Perrell, draws together choice examples of 20th-century art from significant Long Island collections. This presentation embraces a wide range of treasures by pioneering artists of the modernist era, among them Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Dali, Léger, Chagall, Miró, Toulouse-Lautrec and others.
Nassau County Museum of Art is located at One Museum Drive in Roslyn Harbor. Angela Susan Anton is the President of the Board of Trustees of the Nassau County Museum of Art. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Docent-led tours of the exhibition are offered at 2 p.m. each day and are free with museum admission. Members and children under four are free. For more information, go to www.nassaumuseum.org.
