Herbert and Dorothy Vogel

Herbert Vogel, known as Herb, was the son of a Russian Jewish garment worker from Harlem.[5] He never finished high school and, after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, worked nights as a clerk sorting mail for the United States Postal Service until his retirement in 1979. Dorothy Faye Hoffman is the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish stationery merchant from Elmira, New York.[5] She received a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University and a master's degree from the University of Denver, both in library science, and worked until her retirement in 1990 as a librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library.[6]

Herbert and Dorothy married in 1962, a year after they met, in Elmira.[7] Early in their marriage, they took painting classes at New York University, but later gave up painting in favor of collecting. They had no children, lived very frugally, and shared their living space with fish, turtles, and cats named after famous painters.[8][9]

One of their earliest acquisitions was a work by Giuseppe Napoli that Herb bought before marrying Dorothy. They bought a ceramic piece by Pablo Picasso to celebrate their engagement. A piece called Crushed Car Parts by American sculptor John Chamberlain was their first post-wedding acquisition.[10]

The couple used Dorothy's income to cover their living expenses and instead of eating in restaurants or travelling, they used Herb's income, which peaked at $23,000 annually,[11] for art. They did not buy for investment purposes, choosing only pieces they personally liked and could carry home on the subway or in a taxi.[12] They bought directly from the artists, often paying in installments. Once, according to The Washington Post, they received a collage from environmental artist Christo in exchange for cat-sitting.[13] In 1975, they held the first exhibition of their collection, at the Clocktower Gallery in lower Manhattan.[9]

They amassed a collection of over 4,782 works, which they displayed, and also stored in closets and under the bed, in their rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.[14][15] Though their focus was mainly conceptual art and minimalist art,[16] the collection also includes noteworthy post-minimalist work.[10] Their collection eventually came to include work from artists such as pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, photographers Cindy Sherman and Lorna Simpson, minimalist Robert Mangold, and post-minimalist Richard Tuttle.

In 1992, the Vogels decided to transfer the entire collection to the National Gallery of Art because it charges no admission, does not sell donated works, and they wanted their art to belong to the public.[17] In late 2008, they launched The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States along with the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.[18] The program donated 2,500 works to 50 institutions across 50 states and was accompanied by a book with the same name.

Megumi Sasaki has made two documentaries about the Vogels.

Released in 2008, Herb and Dorothy focused on the story of the Vogels, how they amassed their collection, and their donation of it to the National Gallery of Art. It won six awards at five different film festivals.[19][20][21][22]

Released in 2013, Herb and Dorothy 50x50 continued from when the previous documentary had ended, and concentrated on the distribution of fifty works from the collection to one museum in each of the fifty states within the U.S. as well as the role that the Vogels and some of the artists had in their exhibition.[23]

The Vogels bought art from and became close friends with influential New York artists of the second half of the 20th century including Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and many of the artists listed below.[10]

The recipient museums of the Vogel Collection's Fifty Works for Fifty States program are:

The artists included in the Vogels' gifts are:

• 1992 in art

• National Gallery of Art, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, 2008, ISBN 0-615-23271-X
• Paoletti. John T., From Minimal to Conceptual Art: Works from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, 1994, ISBN 0-89468-206-7

• Vogel 50/50
• The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel papers, 1960-1990, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
• Herbert Vogel, Fabled Art Collector, Dies at 89; New York Times