Known For
Building one of the world's largest privately-held contemporary art collections while establishing Miami as a premier international art hub.
About
Don Rubell, alongside his wife Mera, established one of North America's most significant private contemporary art collections beginning in 1960s New York, where intensive studio visits and years-long artist relationships yielded seminal works by pioneers including Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The couple relocated their vision to Miami in 1993, initially operating from Wynwood before expanding to a purposefully-designed space in Allapattah in 2019 that now displays rotating exhibitions drawing from their acquisitions of over 1,000 artists. Recognized for championing underrepresented creators—particularly African American, Latin American, and Asian contemporary practitioners—the Rubells catalyzed Miami's emergence as a global art destination, playing a decisive role in attracting Art Basel to South Florida. Their institutional footprint extends nationally with the 2022 opening of a Washington D.C. location in a converted Southwest Waterfront schoolhouse, currently presenting Material Witness, an exhibition of 30 artists working with unconventional materials through fall 2026.
