He graduated from Frederiksberg Latin og Realskole in 1907 and was a student of Holger Grønvold at Det tekniske Selskabs Skole from 1907.
[2] In 1921, Salto co-founded the artistic group De Fire, consisting of Svend Johansen, Vilhelm Lundstrøm and Karl Larsen.
Among Salto's first works was the polychrome porcelain (Bing & Grøndahl, 1923–25), which was presented in the Danish Pavilion at the Paris World Exhibition in 1925.
[2] Salto developed his ceramic stoneware works throughout his career and experimented with unusually rich glazes and organic shapes.
[2] After the trip to Paris in 1916 and the meeting with Pablo Picasso, Salto founded the Danish art magazine Klingen published from 1917 to 1920.
Although the magazine was only published for two years, it became important as a forum for modernism art as well as the new ideas of the time, with articles by literary critic Einar Otto Gelsted, author Poul Henningsen and artist Harald Giersing, as well as original artwork by Vilhelm Lundstrøm, Olaf Rude, William Scharff and Axel Salto himself.