The Collector: Martin Margulies

The Collector12.17.2025

The art collector, philanthropist, and real-estate tycoon Martin Margulies founded the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, a non-profit arts space in Miami to house and share his vast collection of contemporary art.

Margulies grew up in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood, the son of grocers in Harlem. [1] He moved to Miami in the early 1960s and became a major player in the real estate business. “I was starting a real-estate business, and I bought a couple of modern prints by Chagall and Picasso, and one thing led to another,” Margulies told ARTnews of his entry into collecting, which began with purchases from dealer Wally Reiss. Then, he attended the legendary Robert C. Scull auction at Sotheby’s in 1973. “I went to an auction in New York, and I said to myself, ‘These people buying are smart people. They’re business people and putting their money into something.’ So I started going around to dealers.” [2]

After the auction, he was approached by Shaindy Fenton, a Texas-based dealer who worked with Ray and Patsy Nasher on their sculpture collection. Fenton offered her help and introduced Margulies to the top dealers of postwar and contemporary art in New York, including Bill Acquavella, Xavier Fourcade, Larry Rubin, Arne Glimcher, and Leo Castelli.

“They were all willing to share their experiences,” Margulies said. “It was a fascinating field, and I got very enthused about it. I started reading, learning, coming up to New York, going to galleries, and I realized it was a different life, a new life for me, not about building, not about business. If you made enough money, you could embark on this new life, and it really turned out great.” [Ibid.]

In 1980, he bought a rare painting from Joan Miró’s “Constellation” series, “Femme dans la Nuit” (1940), from Marcel Duchamp’s widow, Alexina “Teeny” Duchamp. Margulies paid a mere $300,000. A similar piece from the “Constellation” series sold at Sotheby’s London in June 2017 for £24.5 million (about $31.1 million). “I was approached by a guy who offered me a million dollars more for the Miró than what anybody else will pay, and I said, ‘Well, you can give me $20 million over it, but it’s not for sale,’” Margulies said in 2018. [Ibid.]

Three years later, Margulies purchased Rothko’s “Untitled (Silver, Orange, Plum)” (1962) from Lawrence Rubin, then director of the gallery Knoedler & Company. For the painting, which had been in the collection of the Baltimore couple Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, Margulies paid less than $400,000. Rothko paintings from that period and of similar scale have sold for as much as $86.8 million, but Margulies keeps “Untitled (Silver, Orange, Plum)” in his living room. [Ibid.]

Another major project in the 1980s was the development of Grove Isle, a small, private residential island in Miami’s Coconut Grove. Margulies turned the exclusive grounds into a public sculpture garden, installing large-scale works by the likes of Isamu Noguchi and Michael Heizer. In the ‘90s, much of the collection was moved to Florida International University’s main campus in West Miami-Dade.

In 1998, Margulies and curator Katherine Hinds began to search for a space to display his collection of blue-chip modern and contemporary works, which by then included paintings, photographs, multimedia installations, and sculptures. The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse opened to the public in 1999 and expanded several times. [3] Today, the Warehouse stretches across 50,000 square feet in Miami’s Wynwood district. Each year, the non-profit institution presents an exhibition curated from the family’s 4,000 works. Occasionally, Margulies himself will lead tours of exhibitions, which have ranged from Abstract Expressionist paintings to Arte Povera works. Margulies also actively loans pieces from his private collection to major museums around the world.

Margulies’ collection has been reported as being worth some $800 million, but he rarely parts with any of his works. He has expressed disdain for the purely transactional art market and its increasingly exorbitant prices: “If you really love the art, you wouldn’t want to speculate on it by reselling quickly—I am not interested in doing that.” [4]

Interviewers have asked about his criteria for buying art. “First, I have to like it,” he said. “Then, it has to fit into my collection. It has to have the rhythm of the collection. And I have to be able to afford it; but today often I can’t buy: the prices are truly astounding.” [Ibid.]

In addition to philanthropic commitments to charitable causes like Miami’s Lotus House, Margulies has bequeathed money to museums like the Whitney, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. But he does not plan for his collection to end up in such institutions. “I don’t want to see my work in storage, brought out every 10 years,” he said.

Instead, he plans to sell his collection for charity.

“A lot of people like to see their names on buildings,” he said. “I don’t care. We’re so insignificant in many ways.”

“What would I do with $50 million? Buy more art,” he continued. “But the problem is, you can’t replace what I have sold.” [1]

SOURCES

[1] Pogrebin, Robin, “In a Red-Hot Art Market, the Collector Martin Margulies Stays Cool.” The New York Times. Dec. 6, 2015
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/arts/design/in-a-red-hot-art-market-the-collector-martin-margulies-stays-cool.html

[2] Tully, Judd. “From Miró Constellations to 50,000 Pounds of Kiefer: Martin Z. Margulies on 45 Years of Collecting.” ARTnews. December 4, 2018
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/miro-constellations-50000-pounds-kiefer-martin-z-margulies-45-years-collecting-11438/

[3] Loos, Ted. “Martin Margulies and His Daughter, Elizabeth, Open Up Their Miami Home.” Galerie Magazine. December 9, 2019
https://galeriemagazine.com/margulies-home-miami-collection/

[4] Adam, Georgina. “Collector Martin Margulies: ‘Today often I can’t buy — the prices are truly astounding.’” Financial Times. November 25, 2022
https://www.margulieswarehouse.com/index.php/press/financial-times

Images: Martin Margulies' Miami home in 2019 Galerie Magazine, photo by Nick Mele

Image: Andy Warhol, “Set of Five Boxes: Brillo Soap Pad; Campbell’s Tomato Juice; Del Monte Peach Halves; Heinz Tomato Ketchup; Kellogg’s Corn Flakes” (1964); Roy Lichtenstein, “Yellow and Green Brushstrokes” (1966); Isamu Noguchi, “Square Ring” (1971); Rothko

In the foreground from left to right is Joan Miró, “Femme dans la nuit” (1940), Willem de Kooning, “Fire Island” (1946) on the wall and “Seated Woman on a Bench” (1972) on the floor, Isamu Noguchi “Remembrance” (1944) and “The Bow” (1973). In the back is Lichtenstein, “Yellow and Green Brushstrokes” (1966) and Duane Hanson, “Cleaning Woman (Queenie)” (1980)
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Martin Margulies and Isamu Noguchi in 1980
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A work from Brice Marden’s “Elements” series and Claes Oldenburg, “Soft Baked Potato” (1970)
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Philip Guston, “The Door” (1976), Jackson Pollock, “Number 23 (1951),” Miro, “Femme assise et enfant” (1967), and Oldenberg, “Soft Baked Potato”
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Works by Cy Twombly, Franz Kline, “Sun Carrier” (1961), Rothko, and a Miró and Josep Llorens Artigas vase
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Twombly, Robert Indiana, “Hub” (1962), David Smith, “Agricola VI” (1952) and Franz Kline, “Sun Carrier” (1961)
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On the walls from left, works by Frank Stella and Brice Marden. At right, a John Chamberlain overlooks an Igloo by Mario Merz
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Margulies at Grove Isle with Tony Rosenthal, “Large T-Square” (1978)
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