In the Herb and Dorothy Vogel Film How Did They Purchase the Works of Art for Their Collect?
Guest post by Julia Kilgore.
When I first heard that Dorothy Vogel was coming to the Bloomington campus, I remembered that all I knew about her was that she and her hubby, Herbert Vogel, were well-known art collectors who had donated thousands of pieces to various museums across the The states. As I saturday downward for my interview with Mrs. Vogel, I was non sure what to expect. I'd watched the documentary Herb & Dorothy and read articles with intriguing headlines like "The Unlikely Medici: A Pair of Art Fans Gather What May Be the 'Premier Collection' of Its Blazon" and "How a Working Class Couple Amassed a Priceless Art Collection." Although people oft think that art collecting primarily concerns money, I soon discovered that for this unusual collector it was about her joy for collecting artwork with her husband also as the couple's personal relationships with the artists.
An Introduction to the Vogels:
Herbert Vogel, known by some as Herb or Herby, was the son of a Russian Jewish garment worker from Harlem. Afterward serving in the army during World State of war 2, Herbert worked nights equally a clerk sorting post for the U.South. Postal Service. His married woman, Dorothy (née Hoffman), was the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish shopkeeper from Elmira, New York, and worked every bit a reference librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.
The Vogels met in 1961 at a reunion for guests of a summer resort. They married a year afterwards and quickly began acquiring works by previously undiscovered or underappreciated artists, such as Richard Tuttle, Sol Lewitt, and Robert Mangold. Sadly, Herbert passed away in 2012.
The Interview:
The Vogels and Their Human relationship with Art
Originally, Mrs. Vogel wasn't very interested in fine art. She attributes much of her love for art and collecting to her human relationship with her husband.
Dorothy: "When I was going to school for library science I didn't know anything nearly art. I only got interested when I met my husband. Even when we were dating, we went out to dinner and movies but not to galleries or museums. When we got married, right away he started taking me to diverse museums. On our honeymoon to Washington, i of the first places we visited was the National Gallery. That's where I started learning almost art. I learned about art past looking at it, and to this day I never have read a textbook on art history. I accept gone to a lot of lectures and I have talked to a lot of artists about their work, but I never took a grade in art history. I was more interested in painting and going to galleries, and with a full-time chore I didn't have fourth dimension to take a course in art history. I learned a lot forth the way. You become a better perception of what art is about by looking at it straight."
Dorothy met Herbert while he was painting and taking courses at NYU. His passion for art ignited something in Dorothy and soon afterward they got married she also began taking courses at NYU. Both had the goal of one twenty-four hour period condign professional artists, and their personal creations were plastered all over their flat.
As the years went by, withal, more and more works by other artists began to find a place on their walls, and the Vogels soon realized that they had a passion for collecting.
Dorothy: "1 day nosotros looked upwardly and realized that the other artists were better than we were and that we were better at collecting than painting."
Thus, they devoted their lives to collecting, and their apprehensive, ane-bedroom New York City flat became a kind of private museum. Since they had full-time jobs, they had to collect during the evenings and on weekends. Dorothy'south salary paid their living expenses, while Herbert'southward income fueled their collecting.
Dorothy: "All of our spare fourth dimension was devoted to it. It was something my husband and I shared. We loved what we were doing. We seemed to concur on what nosotros liked in many cases. Not always though. My hubby liked things that were more flamboyant and I tended to like things that were more cerebral, simply we respected each other's vision. We enjoyed it so much."
One of the principal focuses of the collection was upward-and-coming artists.
Dorothy: "We knew a lot of these artists who were doing the minimal art at the fourth dimension…Their work was not actually accustomed quickly. They were shown more in Europe than in the United States because people at that time were more than interested in Abstract Expressionism and Pop art…so we had no competitors because no one was interested and and so we were able to buy a lot of their work."
The Vogels and Sol Lewitt
Herbert and Dorothy were interested not only in buying the fine art only too in getting to know the artists personally. Mrs. Vogel spoke at length nearly her interactions with artists—nearly having them over for dinner, seeing them at gallery openings, or visiting them in their studios. Among the many individuals Mrs. Vogel mentioned, 1 in detail came to the forefront: Sol Lewitt.
Dorothy: "So we got to know these artists and when you lot get to know them, you become to know their work better…We were very close to Sol Lewitt. I call back we were the starting time to buy his piece of work. Herby and I were going to galleries and we were at Leo Castelli's gallery and Sol Lewitt was at that place. Herby had met him years before through another artist. I was introduced to Sol at that time and he said he was going to have an exhibition at the John Daniels Gallery and asked if we would get and see information technology. At that time there weren't many galleries that were dealing in that type of art so our ears perked up. So correct afterwards we saw him, we went directly to that new gallery. After on, we saw Sol's show in that location. [His] works were quite radical. There were structures in unlike colors and they were very minimal. Information technology took united states of america a while to get adjusted to it because it was so different."
Throughout the years, the Vogels continued to go on in affect with Sol. In fact, Herby would call him every Saturday.
Their interactions with Sol too allowed the couple to go to know his assistant, Susanna Singer, whom Dorothy fondly refers to equally Sol's "gatekeeper."
Dorothy: "If yous wanted to reach Sol, you'd take to attain Susanna."
Afterward both Herby and Sol passed away, she and Susanna began talking every Sabbatum. She became a lifelong friend to Dorothy and to this day accompanies her on her trips. The director of the documentary Herb & Dorothy, Megumi Sasaki, whom the Vogels met at the Gracie Mansion in New York, is some other of Dorothy's frequent traveling companions.
Condign Arts Philanthropists
The couple's collection eventually became then vast that they became philanthropists, first donating works to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and then giving fifty works to museums in l states, including to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Dorothy: "Nosotros never got storage infinite because nosotros wanted complete control of what we had. Information technology wasn't until the National Gallery came and started taking the work abroad that we realized how much we had."
She besides didn't want to do it alone.
Dorothy: "When Herb died, I decided that I didn't want to collect without him. It was our collection and I didn't desire to water information technology down. It had to have his banner on it, so I gave it up."
Every bit far as she was concerned, the collection was complete.
The IU Movie theater will show the documentary Herb & Dorothy equally office of the Art and a Motion picture series on Lord's day, Nov 12, 2017, at 3 p.thou. About exciting of all is that following the movie, Dorothy Vogel will be present for a mail service-screening conversation with the director of the Eskenazi Museum of Art, David Brenneman.
These programs are presented in partnership with the Eskenazi Museum of Art and are sponsored by Marsha R. Bradford and Harold A. Dumes. This partnership is supported through IU Cinema's Creative Collaborations plan.
Julia Kilgore is currently completing a dual masters in Library Scientific discipline and Art History at Indiana Academy. As a graduate banana for the Eskenazi Museum of Fine art and a student worker at the Indiana Academy Archives, she loves to run across how fine art, film, and archives coincide and continually inspire those who interact with these materials.
Source: https://blogs.iu.edu/aplaceforfilm/2017/11/06/herb-and-dorothy-2008-an-interview-with-dorothy-vogel/
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