Herb & Dorothy Vogel Amassed One of America's Greatest Art Collections

On Sunday I watched an inspiring documentary by Megumi Sasaki’s, Herb and Dorothy – Herb together with his wife and collecting partner, gifted his entire collection of more than 4000 pieces to the National Gallery and 50 institutions across the USA. On July 22, Herb passed away in New York City, aged 89.

Herb and Doroth inside their Manhattan apartment

Herb Vogel was a postal clerk and his wife Dorothy a reference librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. Since 1962, for the entirety of their married lives, the couple used Herb’s salary to purchase contemporary American art, particularly minimalist and conceptual art as well as abstract expressionism (Michael Goldberg and Charles Clough), innovative post-minimalist approaches (Richard Francisco and Pat Steir), and diverse figurative directions (Will Barnet and Mark Kostabi). The couple mainly collected works on paper that could be carried in a taxi or on the subway to their rent controlled one bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. See Vogel’s collection and biography for more details.