Already in the late 1960s, at the start of his academic career as a professor at Columbia Business School, New York, Michael Adler began collecting Israeli art. Motivated primarily by his desire to take with him to America Israeli art that expressed the spirit of the country and its unique physical and especially mental landscapes, he acquainted himself with Israeli post-minimalist and conceptual artists. In their works, he found an echo both to the logical reasoning and philosophical themes that always interested him in his professional life. The ideational affinity as well as the great interest he found in these works led to a fruitful dialogue between Adler and those artists. Largely due to this discourse, he was able to maintain and even reinforce his connection not only to art, but also, in a sense, to Israel.