Vogel 50x50

Passionately devoted to contemporary art and artists, Dorothy and Herb Vogel, a New York City postal clerk and his wife, a librarian, began in 1962 to build what would become a legendary art collection. They collected the art of their time and got to know the artists and their work, eventually bringing together some 4000 artworks. In 1991, the Vogels donated most of their collection to the National Gallery in Washington. In addition, they selected fifty works for one museum in each of the fifty U.S. states. The Seattle Art Museum is the beneficiary in the State of Washington and will exhibit the entire Vogel gift in the spring of 2013, which will be contextualized by works from the museum’s collection.

–Catharina Manchanda, Jon & Mary Shirley Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art

The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

In 2009, the Yellowstone Art Museum received exciting news. The immense, famed collection of Conceptual and Minimalist art amassed by Herb and Dorothy Vogel was going to be given away, and given away in quite an unusual fashion. The Vogels’ collection—numbering thousands of works—was divided into two key groups. The first group, about 2,500 works, was to be donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The remainder was to be dispersed throughout the United States under a program administered by the National Gallery of Art, called “Fifty Works for Fifty States.” The Vogels wished to donate fifty works of art from their collection to each of the fifty states. We anxiously awaited the news and were thrilled when the institution selected in Montana was the Yellowstone Art Museum!

Artists who are included among the fifty works in the Montana gift include Stephen Antonakos, Will Barnet, Robert Barry, Charles Clough, Pinchas Cohen Gan, Claudia de Monte, Richard Francisco, Michael Goldberg, Don Hazlitt, Neil Jenney, Martin Johnson, Stephen Kaltenbach, Steve Keister, Mark Kostabi, Wendy Lehman, Michael Lucero, Joseph Nechvatal, Richard Nonas, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Daryl Trivieri, Richard Tuttle, and Ruth Vollmer.

This will be the first time that the YAM has exhibited this extraordinary gift in its entirety. Be part of the celebration of this honor for the state of Montana.

In 2008, the Hood Museum of Art was selected as the New Hampshire museum recipient of fifty works from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection. Dorothy and Herbert Vogel are somewhat unusual art collectors. Now retired, Herb worked for the U.S. Post Office and Dorothy was a librarian. After their marriage in 1962, they developed a deep interest in the New York contemporary art scene. They began collecting and, using only their civil servants' salaries, acquired over four thousand objects. The Vogels befriended many young artists, many at the beginnings of their careers, and often purchased works on paper in order to store them more easily in their modest apartment. Their collection is strong in minimal and conceptual art, especially drawings, but moves beyond those categories. Much of the Vogels' collection was given to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., but in 2007 they decided to distribute 2,500 works nationally. Dubbed the "50X50 project," they donated fifty works to one institution in each state. The Hood Museum of Art was honored to be the New Hampshire institution designated to receive this important gift.

The Hood is marking the Vogels' gift with the exhibition The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States: New Hampshire, which includes artists such as Richard Nonas, Robert Berry, and Lynda Benglis. Much of the Hood's gift consists of works on paper, including a small abstraction in graphite and silver paint by Michelle Stuart titled July, New Hampshire. Intimate pastels by Edda Renouf seem to glow gently, while curved hills undulate in Bill Jensen's gouache Terra Firma. Much of the work is done on sketchpad paper, giving it an informal feel. The gift includes two groups of works, the first a bound book of forty-three drawings by Jene Highstein, done in a spare minimalist style, and the second a series of delicate watercolors on lined notebook paper by seminal postminimalist Richard Tuttle. In contrast to these are two lively collages from Stephen Antonakos's Travel Collage series and a figurative painting by John Clem Clarke, an artist known for his pop art imagery, painted with a photo-realistic technique.

The Hood Museum of Art, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The presentation of this exhibition at the Hood Museum of Art has been generously funded by the Harrington Gallery Fund.

The RISD Museum celebrates the generosity and vision of contemporary art collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, who gave the Museum a large art donation as part of their Fifty Works for Fifty States project.

Their gift includes paintings and sculptures by Cheryl Laemmle, Wendy Lehman, Don Hazlitt, Alan Shields, and Charles Clough. Joel Shapiro’s exceptional Model for Two Houses is the first work by this renowned sculptor to enter the Museum’s collection. The Vogels’ gift also encompasses works on paper by Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, Nam June Paik, and Edda Renouf.

The Vogels, a postal clerk and a librarian, built one of the world’s finest contemporary art collections in their small Manhattan apartment, using Herb’s income to acquire more than 4,000 works over a span of 50 years. Called “thoroughly modest Medicis” (The Telegraph, UK), the couple sought out and encouraged relatively unknown artists who would later receive international acclaim, including Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and Christo. When their collection outgrew their one-bedroom apartment, the Vogels looked to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where about 1,100 works have been gifted. But its sheer size—far too large for any one institution—led the Vogels and the National Gallery, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, to also give 50 works of art to one institution in every state, making this one of the largest and the most significant philanthropic projects in American art history.

In 2008 the Weatherspoon Art Museum was gifted 50 works on paper from the collection of New Yorkers Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. A retired postmaster and librarian, the Vogels began collecting contemporary art in the early 1960s, developing close relationships with many of the artists whose works they acquired. With the help of the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the couple decided to gift 2,500 works from their collection of 4,000+ to public institutions throughout the nation, calling the program The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States. The Vogel's generous donation to the Weatherspoon is celebrated in this exhibition that features the work of Stephen Antonakos, Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, McWillie Chambers, Charles Clough, Richard Francisco, Don Hazlitt, Jene Highstein, Ralph Iwamoto, Bill Jensen, Stephen Kaltenbach, Steve Keister, Alain Kirili, Michael Lucero, Joseph Nechvatal, Richard Nonas, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Judy Rifka, Alexis Rockman, Lori Taschler, Daryl Trivieri, Richard Tuttle, and Mario Yrissary.

Funding for this exhibition was made possible through the generous support of Bob and Lissa Shelley McDowell.