Recent Acquisitions: Untitled by Marvin Saltzman and February Elegy for John and Kenneth – now Marianne by Carolyn Kizer

The Asheville Art Museum welcomes three works by North Carolina artist Marvin Saltzman. Born in Chicago, IL in 1931, he attended the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1954 to 1956, and received a bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts from the University of Southern California in 1959. Saltzman taught at multiple universities, including Eastern Oregon State College, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of Southern California, and was a member of the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1967 to 1996, where he mentored hundreds of students, many of whom have gone on to have successful artistic careers. Students of Saltzman that are featured in the Collection include Donald Sultan and Ray Kass.

The Chapel Hill Gravel suite of prints was created during Saltzman’s time as a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The portfolio includes serigraph plates by Saltzman alongside plates of poems by Ronald H. Bayes, William Stafford, Lewis Lary, Caroline Kizer, and Jonathon Williams. The imagery featured in this suite is characteristic of his artwork in his time at UNC-Chapel Hill: a series of figures are repeated fluidly, creating an overall abstracted composition. The Chapel Hill Gravel portfolio as well as a drawing and painting by Saltzman were also acquired this year—the first works by this artist to be welcomed into the Collection. These works are gifts from Paul Saltzman and Leslie Saltzman Kreizman in honor of Jacquelyn L. Saltzman.