Have you heard of Herb and Dorothy Vogel? They’re an elderly New York couple—he worked for the post office and she was a librarian—who proved that you don’t have to be a zillionaire Saatchi to amass one of the most important collections of contemporary art on the planet. There’s a documentary about the art-world heroes—the scenes of the diminutive, kind of schlumpy couple milling about with “the beautiful people” at art openings are at once hilarious and inspiring. (Interesting side note: The Academy’s “Under the Wave off Kanagawa” by Hokusai is in the doc for a split second.) They love art, and artists love them. And they are now spreading their love across the country through “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States.” The program will distribute 2,500 works from the Vogels’ collection of contemporary art—50 works are going to a selected art institution in each of the 50 states. The Honolulu Academy of Arts was chosen for Hawai‘i! We’re thrilled by this incredible, generous gift.
Artists whose work is being donated to the Academy include Robert Barry, Don Hazlitt, Bill Jensen, Steve Keister, Mark Kostabi, Joel Perlman, David Reed, Judy Rifka, Richard Tuttle, and Ruth Vollmer.
“The Academy is fortunate indeed to have been invited to participate in Fifty Works for Fifty States, and we are absolutely delighted to accept this generous gift,” says Theresa Papanikolas, the Academy’s Curator of European and American Art. “The Vogel Collection is one of the most significant collections of minimalist and mid-century drawings in existence, and one whose back story and development have always fascinated and inspired me. This will be a jewel in the crown in the Academy’s already strong holdings in 20th-century work on paper. I really admire Mr. and Mrs. Vogel for being so creative in bringing their treasures to modern-art enthusiasts nationwide, and I’m so very grateful to the National Gallery for making it happen.”
The Academy will receive the works next year and will exhibit them within the next five years, as well as publish a catalogue.
Listen to a podcast on the Vogels and their collection from the National Gallery of Art.
what year was this posted? When will the works be exhibited?
This was posted in 2008. The works will go on view next spring:
February 17-May 22, 2011
Selections from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection
The Henry Luce Gallery (28)
In the fall of 2008, New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel gave the Academy 50 works from their important collection of contemporary art, all by American artists of international significance, including Robert Barry, Bill Jensen, Mark Kostabi, Joel Perlman, David Reed, Judy Rifka, and Richard Tuttle. Their generous gift is part of The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, an ambitious initiative coordinated with the assistance of the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, with the goal of distributing 2,500 objects from the Vogels’ extensive collection to a designated institution in each of the 50 states. To celebrate this generous gift—and significant expansion of the Academy’s holdings in mid-20th-century art—the Academy is organizing a major exhibition that will bring the Vogel collection together with related work from the Academy’s permanent collection. An introduction to minimalist, post-minimalist, and conceptual art—and a glimpse into the collecting practice of an extraordinary couple—this exhibition will humanize the seemingly esoteric world of high modernism.