Victor Salvatore, a sculptor, died Saturday at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He was 80 years old.

Mr. Salvatore is represented in the collections of a number of museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of his best-known works is a heroic bronze statue of James Fenimore Cooper, which was unveiled in Cooperstown, N. Y., 25 years ago. Last year, he sculptured "The Sandlot Kid" for Doubleday Field, the baseball stadium in Cooperstown.

Mr. Salvatore, a native of Italy, came here as a child and went to the Art Students League. In 1904, when he was 19 years old, one of his works won the bronze medal at the St. Louis Exposition. A decade later he had two sculptures in the Armory Show in New York, a turning point in the development of American art.

In 1918, Mr. Salvatore was an organizer of an outdoor art festival in Macdougal Alley in Greenwich Village, where he had a studio. The sale, a forerunner of the outdoor shows still held in Washington Square, raised $225,000 for war relief.

During the 1920's and 1930's Mr. Salvatore ran a workshop for young artists at the Greenwich House Settlement. More recently he worked in a studio in Springfield Center, N. Y., and he had a home at 108 East 38th Street.

Surviving are his widow, the former Ellen Ryerson; two daughters, Mrs. Elena Raymond and Mrs. Vittoria Demarest; a son, Salvatore, Jr., and six grandchildren.