In 1989, Norton and his wife Eileen founded the Peter Norton Family Foundation, which provides financial support to visual and contemporary non-profit arts organizations, as well as human social services organizations. He serves on the board of MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Whitney.
The Nortons accumulated one of the largest modern contemporary art collections in the United States. ARTnews magazine regularly lists Norton among the world's top two-hundred collectors.
Twenty-five years ago, the Norton Family Christmas Project began commissioning artists to create original, multiple-edition works that were mailed as holiday greetings to friends, colleagues, and selected institutions.
"My wife and I are active in the world of contemporary art, and some time ago we became embarrassed at the idea of sending out traditional commercial cards at Christmastime when we had so many artists as friends,” he told Gregory Taylor. "So we began commissioning original Christmas greetings, which we send out to our closest friends and colleagues.”
The multiples and artists’ books in the series vary wildly: a porcelain ashtray, a lapel pin, a printed fan, a music box, a CD, a woven blanket, a lifesaver, a dollhouse, trophies, cards, a cup & saucer, a slide viewer, salt & pepper shakers as snow globes, pop up books by Peter Coffin and Kara Walker, etc., etc.
Participating artists include Robert Lazzarini, Do Ho Suh, Ry Rocklen, Takashi Murakami, Anna Gaskell, Yinka Shonibare, Sanford Biggers, Yasumasa Morimura, Christian Marclay, Vik Muniz, Sanford Biggers, Nina Katchadourian, Marc Swanson, Jim Hodges, Kevin Sommers, Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt, Benjamin Lord, Richard Kostelanetz, Lorna Simpson, Lawrence Weiner, and many others.
