Vogel 50x50

Friday, August 23, 2013–Sunday, January 26, 2014 Over several decades and with a modest income, New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel amassed a vast and uniquely perceptive collection of contemporary art. In 2008 the Vogels created a program to distribute their collection throughout the nation, donating 50 objects to a selected art institution in each of the 50 states. This student-curated exhibition presents for the first time the Vogels’ generous gift to Connecticut, which was placed in the care of the Yale University Art Gallery and includes work by artists such as Robert Barry, Lois Dodd, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Lucio Pozzi, and Richard Tuttle. While the Vogel Collection has been highly regarded for its Minimal, Postminimal, and Conceptual objects, the selection given to the Gallery reflects the broader variety of work produced in New York during this period. Featuring additional selections from the Gallery’s holdings by artists whose work the Vogels collected, the exhibition—which is organized around the three formal concerns of line, color, and shape—allows for a rich presentation of the New York art world in the second half of the twentieth century and tells the story of the Vogels’ deeply personal engagement with artists.

Exhibition organized by Yale University students under the direction of Molleen Theodore, the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Fellow. Made possible by the Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund and an endowment created with a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Beginning in 1962, New York postal clerk, Herbert Vogel, and his librarian wife, Dorothy, began collecting contemporary works of art. The couple dedicated all of Herb's salary to buying art, and in a few decades had amassed a collection encompassing some 4,000 works. Today, these works form one of the most remarkable collections of contemporary art in America. Motivated by the desire to share their collection with the public, the couple developed a program to gift 50 works to one institution in each of the 50 states, including UNLV. This program became known as Vogel 50x50. The collection includes the work by such notables as Stephen Antonakos, Neil Jenney, Lynda Benglis, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Bettina Werner and Richard Tuttle. The award-winning documentary, Herb & Dorothy, by filmmaker Megumi Sasaki, will be playing in the Barrick Museum to accompany the exhibition. The film tells the extraordinary story of the Vogels.

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.

Dorothy and Herbert Vogel began collecting the work of emerging artists in 1962, eventually assembling a singular collection of more than 4,000 examples of cutting-edge art by over 177 artists. In 2008, with the help of the National Gallery of Art, the Vogels launched a national gifts program, “Fifty Works for Fifty States”, which distributed 2,500 works from the Vogel’s collection throughout the nation, with 50 works going to a selected institution in each of the 50 states. Daum Museum was the Missouri designee. This exhibition celebrates the 50 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper the Daum received as beneficiaries of the program.

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.