His work included sculpted portraits of John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Albert Einstein, Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, and classical nudes.
After the war's conclusion, Salemme returned to the United States, where he settled in New York City and became involved in the Greenwich Village cultural scene of the 1920s and 1930s.
After a 43-year career in New York City, Salemme and his wife Martha returned to the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania in 1962.
In the 1980s, he and his wife Martha set up the Antonio Salemme Foundation in Allentown, Pennsylvania, as an initial step towards the founding of a museum to permanently house the artist's work.
[2][3][4] Working from memory and imagination, and inspired by Hindu philosophy and his devoted practice of Zen Buddhist meditation, Salemme painted and sculpted almost up until his death at age 102.