NEW YORK, NY.- Christies announced the Birth of the Modern: The Arnold and Joan Saltzman Collection, a thrilling selection of modern masterpieces which will be showcased during Fall Marquee Week in New York, beginning with a dedicated group in the 20th Century Evening Sale on November 17, 2025. The culmination of over sixty years of collecting, numbering over seventy works, the collection boasts exceptional examples by leading 20th century artists, including Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Edvard Munch, František Kupka, Robert Delaunay, Henri Matisse and Henry Moore. One of the most complete inquiries into modernism to come to market, most of the works have not been seen in public for many decades. The collection's offerings across both Evening and Day Sales are expected to realize in excess of $70 million.

The collection is led by Fernand Léger's cubist masterpiece Composition, executed in 1914 and belonging to his most celebrated series, Contraste de formes, a series of paintings that forever changed the way we look at art. Originally in the collection of the famed collector and scholar Douglas Cooper, the Saltzmans acquired the piece at the auction of Cooper's collection in 1980. Another highlight is Henri Matisse's Femme au chapeau fleuri, a dazzling portrait of his favorite model of his years in Nice, Henriette Darricarrère, seated within a beautifully orchestrated space of shifting colors and patterns. The Czech painter František Kupka, who emigrated to Paris in 1895 and, along with Kandinsky, was a pioneer of pure abstraction, is represented in the Saltzman collection by three fine examples, including the large canvas, Une Pensée, and an exquisite work on paper, Autour d'un point.

A sculptural highlight in the Evening Sale is Henry Moore's monumental Reclining Figure: Elbow, among the most rhythmic and sensual of his large-scale compositions. Mr. and Mrs. Saltzman's son, Eric Saltzman, recalls, “Through over seventy years of marriage, Arnold and Joan collaborated brilliantly in their activism and philanthropy. However, as Joan would say when visitors complimented her on the paintings, 'Oh, those lovely postage stamps on the walls? Those are Arnold's'. When Arnold was chasing an artist or work he needed for his collection, very little would stop him -- with Henry Moore's fantastic bronze, he was chasing both. He flew to London and drove out to Moore's home and studio in Hertfordshire, hoping to persuade Moore to sell him the work. Moore demurred, explaining that all his finished work went directly to his Foundation, and he didn't control their disposition. Arnold made several more visits, each time bringing the particular Israeli melons he'd learned Moore liked. Somehow, the Foundation found a way to free up the sculpture to sell to Arnold. I still have Henry Moore's personal thank you note for the melons.”

Conor Jordan, Christie's Deputy Chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art, remarks, “Arnold Saltzman assembled this art collection with passionate vision. Taking as his focus the revolutionary creative spirit that animated Europe in the early 20th century, Arnold Saltzman's taste was ambitious and wide-ranging. From striking figuration to daring abstraction, across paintings, drawings and sculpture, the collection he built traverses artistic movements and boundaries, featuring artists of some seventeen different nationalities. Visitors in recent years to the National Gallery in Washington D.C. have been able to enjoy the Saltzmans' generous gift of German Expressionist masterpieces displayed together in a new gallery devoted to these works. This coming November in New York we look forward with excitement to bringing the art world's attention to Birth of the Modern: The Collection of Arnold and Joan Saltzman.”

More exceptional highlights from the collection will be showcased in the Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sales on November 18, including a vibrant, divisionist portrait by Robert Delaunay of his friend and contemporary, Jean Metzinger, creatively paired in the Saltzman home alongside a portrait painted by Jean Metzinger two years later of Delaunay. The collection also includes a superb example of a vividly colored mountainous landscape by German expressionist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, one of the founding members of Die Brücke, and an exceedingly rare painting by the German painter, Wilhelm Morgener, known for his quasi abstract, symbolist compositions. The artist died in the first world war, in 1917, at just 26, and his celebrated works come to the market infrequently.

The son of emigres from Russia and Czechoslovakia, Arnold Saltzman lived a life across the realms of both business and public service. Graduating from Columbia College at 19, he joined his family's small business, Premier Knitting, becoming its President, and moving on to build a NYSE listed industrial conglomerate. Arnold Saltzman's path of public service began in 1942, with his work during the War in the Office of Price Administration, before he entered the military. He was appointed by three U.S. Presidents for diplomatic assignments in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Central and South America, and Austria. He was honored with a Presidential Commendation for his work on the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Passionate in his mission to contribute to the betterment of society in areas ranging from healthcare to education, Ambassador Saltzman served actively on boards for a breadth of organizations, including Columbia College, the North Shore University Hospital, Hofstra University, and the New York Public Library. He was a Trustee of the Baltimore Museum and the founding president of the Nassau County Museum of Art. In 2003, in honor of his tireless support, Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, named their research center The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.

Joan Saltzman, a graduate of Barnard College, was an exceptionally effective activist, advocate, and community organizer in pursuit of social justice. Joan was appointed by Governor of New York Hugh Carey to the New York State Health Coordinating Council and the Office of Mental Hygiene Planning Council. She founded and co-founded organizations including the Long Island Women's Fund, the Long Island Community Foundation, Erase Racism, developed housing programs for the disabled, and established, with Arnold, The Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center at Hofstra University.

Mr. and Mrs. Saltzman's daughter, Mimi Saltzman, remarks, “For my brothers Robert and Eric, our children, and me, Arnold's collection figures in every memory of home. His arrival with a new painting felt triumphant. Arnold's connection to each of the works was intense, and when he stood with me in front of a painting or sculpture, even at a young age, it was a tutorial in aesthetics, intellect, and joy in discovery. Arnold's collecting expressed his curiosity, discipline, and ambition. Now in Christie's galleries all the memories are still attached, and each of these extraordinary works seem alive in a new context with a fresh recognition of their durable significance."