Written by Eric Ferreri
As one of six recipients of the state’s highest honor, Marvin Saltzman considers himself to be in some pretty good company.
The retired UNC art professor is one of three winners of the 1998 North Carolina Award with ties to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area. He joins Martin Rodbell, an adjunct professor at Duke and UNC who won the Nobel Prize in 1994, and noted singer and songwriter James Taylor, who grew up in Carrboro.
“One of those names is a Nobel Laureate, for god’s sake,” Saltzman said, referencing Rodbell. “To be in the same group as a Nobel Laureate, I’ll take that any day. I’m honored.”
Also receiving the awards are author Kay Gibbons of Raleigh; Emily Harris Preyer of Greensboro, a human relations, civil rights and environmental activist; and L. Richardson Preyer, a longtime judge and U.S. congressman. All will be honored Nov. 9 at a ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh.
The award is given by the state Department of Cultural Resources, which honored Saltzman for his strong, passionate abstract paintings and his many years of work with UNC art students. Saltzman was on the UNC faculty for 30 years.
Since retiring last year, Saltzman has continued to draw and paint. He specializes in drawing and painting natural landscapes, such as a series of landscape drawings he did last year during an 11-day cruise up and down the Norwegian coast.
Unlike many artists, Saltzman prefers to let the subject dominate his art, he said.
“My ego is not so great,” he said. “The place that I am drawing or painting is more important than I am.”
Saltzman, 67, and his wife, Jackie, have two children who live in Durham. While his art keeps him busy, there is, perhaps, something missing in retirement.
“I miss teaching,” he said. “The students have been wonderful. That’s what I miss. You can’t put those things into words.”
Rodbell, the co-recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in medicine, receives the North Carolina Award for his biomedical discoveries in the field of cellular functions opened up the field of signal transduction. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Barbara.
Taylor, probably the most well-known of the recipients, was born in Boston but moved to Carrboro with his family in the 1950s, when his father was dean of the UNC Medical School.
One of Taylor’s most famous songs is “Carolina in My Mind”, inspired by his love of the Tar Heel state. Taylor, who has won three Grammy Awards, lives in Martha’s Vineyard.
