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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > April > 11 > Entry
Blanton Museum of Art to receive portion of Vogel Collection
The Blanton Museum of Art has been selected by the National Gallery of Art as the only museum in Texas for “Fifty Works for Fifty States,” a nation-wide initiative that will give 50 artworks from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection to a museum in each of the 50 states.
The Vogel Collection — one of the most important gatherings of contemporary art ever assembled privately — was amassed by the former United States Postal Service employee and his public librarian wife over the last five decades. The New York couple, now retired, lived modestly in order to devote their income to acquiring art. The Vogels showed a portion of their collection at the Blanton in 1997. The Blanton’s “Fifty Works” gift — the list of works has not yet been released — will go display within the next five years.
Sylvia Plimack Mangold. “Untitled (August),” 1980
From the press release distributed by the National Gallery:
Acquired over the last 45 years, the internationally renowned Vogel Collection of contemporary art comprises primarily drawings with some significant works of painting and sculpture and a small number of prints, photographs and illustrated books. The Vogel Collection is best known for its holdings of minimal, post-minimal and conceptual art, and the diversity of intellectual and stylistic expressions in a variety of media. New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel have acquired works by artists whose careers developed after 1960, and in many cases, have assembled large numbers of works by individual artists throughout their career.
The extraordinary breadth and depth of collection are even more remarkable considering the Vogels’ modest means.
Dorothy Vogel was born in 1935, in Elmira, New York, the daughter of a stationery store owner. She pursued a career as a librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library. Herbert Vogel was in New York in 1922, the son of a tailor. In the 1950s — when he wasn’t working as a clerk for the United States Postal Service, wandering around art museum or taking classes at the New York Institute of Fine Arts — Herbert spent time at the Cedar Bar, a meeting place for artists such as David Smith and Franz Kilne.
The Vogels met in 1960. They married one year later and spent their honeymoon in Washington D.C. where Herbert introduced Dorothy to the National Gallery of Art and other museums. Upon their return to New York, Dorothy also began taking classes in drawing and painting at New York University. The couple rented a studio with another artist, painting in their spare time and managing to squeeze in visits to museums and galleries on weekends.
Their first joint purchase of art was a small crashed car sculpture by John Chamberlain in 1962. The Vogels’ friendships with artists Sol LeWitt and Dan Graham, who was then an art dealer, stimulated them to acquire minimal and conceptual art and greatly influenced their collection. Eventually they gave up painting and immersed themselves in collecting — living on Dorothy’s salary and buying art with Herbert’s.
The Vogels were particularly attracted to work by such artists as Will Barnet, Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Mangol, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Edda Renouf, Pat Steir and Richard Tuttle. With the exception of the collection assembled by Sol LeWitt, no other known private collection of similiar work in Europe or America rivals the Vogels.
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By RN
April 11, 2008 2:13 PM | Link to this
Fantasic, can’t wait to see this collection!