After retiring at age 36, Norman Braman went on to create an auto empire, own an NFL team, and help bring Art Basel to Miami Beach.
Irma and Norman Braman in front of some of their collection of 20th-century art, which includes works by Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns.
If you’re ever lucky enough to walk into Norman Braman’s home on the northern tip of Indian Creek Island, you’re first blinded by the sparkle off the water. Then the living room comes into focus. It’s like MOMA on the bay, and that’s before you visit an entire wing devoted to 20th-century giants—a room of Calders, another of Kiefers, the walls of Johns, Lichtensteins, and Warhols. Then there’s Richard Serra’s massive Blade Runner, which sits, in profound weightiness, on the lawn—the four 75-plus-ton slabs of steel monolithic enough to possibly outlast Miami itself. This is the kind of legacy art that interests Norman Braman, and he’s been savvy and successful enough to own it.
Born to immigrant parents in blue-collar Philadelphia (his father was a Polish barber, his mother a Romanian seamstress), Braman had no interest in art as a young man. “My father didn’t drive a car—surviving and moving ahead was prime, not collecting art. I had a full-time job working 40 to 50 hours a week.” He was, however, a zealous Philadelphia Eagles fan, even working as a water boy at the team’s summer training camps. After graduating with a degree in business administration from Temple University, he set out on his American dream, first landing a job as an analyst with a liquor company, then cofounding Keystone Discount Stores, a vitamin retailer. When that firm merged with Philadelphia Pharmaceuticals, Braman found himself, at quite a young age, able to retire. He moved to Miami in 1969 with his wife, Irma, to whom he’s been married for 58 years, and two daughters.
Richard Serra’s Blade Runner is displayed on the Bramans’ lawn.
Part of Braman’s success is that, even at 82 years of age, he seems to have a hard time sitting still. “I had no intention of ever going back to work when I came to Miami,” he says. “I came into the car business as a passive investor.” That “retirement” ended in 1975 when he purchased a Cadillac dealership in Miami, and from there acquired a “sleepy” franchise that included BMW, Bentley, and Rolls-Royce. Today, Braman Motors’ Miami and Palm Beach outposts are ranked fifth and second, respectively, in revenue nationwide.
Building and running the dealerships might have been enough for some, but in 1985, Braman had the opportunity to buy his beloved Philadelphia Eagles. “It was an emotional decision; I was sort of allowing my heart to interfere with my intelligence, but they were wonderful years,” he says. “I am a very competitive person and if we would lose a game, I wouldn’t sleep for about five nights. In 1991, I really got knocked on my butt physically with some major surgery. I decided I would have to reduce the level of stress, and that was coming from owning a football team.” He sold the Eagles in 1994 for a reported $185 million— the most ever for a sports franchise at the time.
The allure of art didn’t strike Braman until he was in his 40s, while he and Irma were staying at their home in southern France. “It was a visit to the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul de Vence,” he says. “We became friendly with Maeght, who was still living at that time. It was really our inspiration for collecting.” With no formal art education, there was a lot to learn, and their sensibilities evolved.
Braman with fellow Miami art collector Carlos de la Cruz at a lecture with Jeffrey Deitch held at the de la Cruz Collection this past October.
Braman is adamant that the collection, valued at an estimated $900 million by Forbes, is the joint effort of both himself and Irma, whom he met while working at a summer camp. “Irma deserves a great deal of credit for two of our major masterpieces,” he says. “She really wanted [them] very dearly, and one in particular was an artist that I did not appreciate. One is Jasper Johns, and one is Basquiat. The Jasper Johns was purchased at a time where I wasn’t as financially secure as I am today. The Basquiat—she insisted on it, and they probably are two of our greatest works of art that we own.”
Of their collecting philosophy, he says, “We’re not collectors looking at art as an investment. The key question that we ask ourselves when we look at a work of art is, ‘Does it raise the level of what we have?’ If it doesn’t meet that criteria, we’re just not interested.”
Art Basel in Miami Beach has transformed Miami well beyond the December aesthetic bacchanal, setting a cultural ripple effect through everything from the food scene to real estate. Norman and Irma Braman were largely responsible for throwing the stone that caused those ripples. After attending the Basel fair in Switzerland for years, they repeatedly asked then-Director Lorenzo Rudolf about a second fair—why not hold it in Miami? After a visit, Rudolf was convinced, and rallied the powers that be. It was not smooth sailing. September 11 caused the first fair to be cancelled, and when ABMB finally did launch, the organization had trouble convincing top galleries to attend. “I remember pressuring galleries that I did a great deal of business with, major galleries, to come to Miami. You need the Matthew Marks, the Gagosians, the David Zwirners, and they weren’t here at the beginning,” says Braman. That has clearly changed, as has Miami. As Braman sees it, quality begets legacy. “It’s not about the parties, it’s not about the glamour. It’s all about the quality of the art.”