The papers of contemporary art collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel measure 47.5 linear feet and date from the 1960s to 2009. Found is scattered general correspondence, artists' files, subject files, business records, and printed material relating to the Vogel Collection. Artists' and subject files create the bulk of the collection, the majority of which is printed material but includes some correspondence from artists.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of contemporary art collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel measure 47.5 linear feet and date from the 1960s to 2009. Found is scattered general correspondence, artists' files, subject files, business records, and printed material relating to the Vogel Collection. Artists' and subject files create the bulk of the collection, the majority of which is printed material but includes some correspondence from artists.
Scattered general correspondence is with friends, acquaintances, and corporate entities.
Files for artists represented in the Vogel Collection include Carl Andre, Stephen Antonakos, Richard Artschwager, Alice Aycock, Will Barnet, Mel Bochner, Andre Cadere, Ann Chernow, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Peggy Cyphers, Claudia DeMonte, Richard Francisco, Dan Graham, Jan Groth, Don Hazlitt, Jene Highstein, On Kawara, Sol Lewitt, Sylvia and Robert Mangold, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Robert Ryman, Barbara Schultz, Lori Taschler, Richard Tuttle, and Lynn Umlauf among many others. Materials within artists' files may include printed material, correspondence, writings and notes, and scattered business records.
Subject files are found for Dorothy and Herbert Vogel's friends and colleagues within the art world including art historians, writers, gallerists, dealers, and collectors. Extensive letters are from Sandy Seawright and Bernadine Tabler. Exhibition related materials are found among the files.
Scattered business records of the Vogel Collection document exhibitions of the collection at U.S. institutions and at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld Museum in Germany.
Printed materials include clippings, posters, and exhibition catalogs and announcements.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, 1971-1987 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Artists' Files, 1963-2009 (30.4 linear feet; Boxes 1-31)
Series 3: Subject Files, 1969-2008 (9.8 linear feet; Boxes 31-41)
Series 4: Vogel Collection Business Records, 1974-1988 (0.3 linear feet; Box 41)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1960s-2000s (6.7 linear feet; Boxes 41-47, OV48-58)
Biographical / Historical:
Dorothy (1935- ) and Herbert Vogel (1922-2012) were contemporary art collectors in New York City, New York. The middle-class couple bought and collected art for forty-five years and amassed an extensive collection.
A life-long New Yorker, Herbert Vogel was born in 1922 and dropped out of school to work in a garment factory. After joining the U.S. Army, Vogel became a postal clerk and began to frequent Greenwich Village's Cedar Bar, a popular bar of the arts crowd. Vogel developed a deep appreciation for art and for the artists themselves.
In 1960, he met librarian Dorothy Faye Hoffman and they quickly fell in love. During their honeymoon, they visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Dorothy and Herb's first purchase was a sculpture by John Chamberlain. On their civil servant salary, the Vogels continued to collect and purchase art, beginning with young artists of the 1960s and 1970s while bypassing the dealer system of the New York City art scene. The result was a collection of 5,000 pieces which had to fit in their one-bedroom apartment.
In 1992, the Vogels donated the bulk of their collection to the National Gallery of Art, with fifty pieces intended to go to a museum or institution in each of the United States. Herbert Vogel died in 2012 in Manhattan and is survived by Dorothy.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel 2435) including three notebooks containing clippings, articles, press releases, exhibition catalogs and announcements. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Dorothy and Herbert Vogel donated their papers in several accretions from 1980 to 2009 and lent three notebooks for microfilming in 1982.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
An interview of Alanna Heiss conducted 2010 June 15 and October 28, by James McElhinney, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Art International Radio, on Leonard Street, in New York, New York.
Heiss speaks of the Clocktower Gallery and the AIR offices; New York galleries and museums and the economic depression of the 1970s; art shows in Germany, France, Switzerland, and England and the role of foreign and West Coast curators in New York shows during the 1960s; founding the Institute for Art and Urban Resources with Brendan Gill; her lack of interest in collecting and the problems she feels it poses for organizations showing art; her attitudes about displaying art in the 1970s; growing up in a small town in Southern Illinois; spending summers as a child in South Dakota; her musical training; art in relation to Midwestern cultural values; her work on the exhibition "Stalin's Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism, 1932-1956" in 1993; her degree in music and the philosophy of aesthetics from Lawrence University; taking classes at the University of Chicago; moving to New York and deciding to focus on visual arts; her time in Europe and the various jobs she took while abroad including teaching, inspecting monuments for the Society for Ancient Buildings and Monuments, writing about animals, selling and transporting used cars, and serving as an artist liaison; and the exhibitions she saw during her travels.
Heiss also discusses trips she made across the United States after returning from Europe; working as a band road crew manger; her work in 1993 on the John Cage tribute show for the Venice Biennale called "Il Suono Rapido delle Cose" and the album produced in conjunction with the show called Caged/Uncaged - A Rock/Experimental Homage To John Cage; her marriage to the artist Jene Highstein and their friendships with the artists Richard Nonas and Gordon Matta-Clark; her return to New York from Europe around 1970 and her use of old or abandoned real estate as locations for contemporary art exhibitions; her first show, "Under the Brooklyn Bridge" in 1971; founding PS1; her work as a parole officer and her exposure to the culture of Harlem; the various shows held at PS1; urban art spaces in New York including the New Museum and the Coney Island Sculpture Museum; her exhibition space on Bleecker Street in New York; her disenchantment with the idea of community art; her work with Tom Finkelpearl; the way she publicized exhibitions; the underground culture of the 1970s; and the relationship between the Museum of Modern Art and PS1 and their eventual merger.
Biographical / Historical:
Alanna Heiss (1943-) is director of Art International Radio in New York, New York. James McElhinney (1952-) is an artist and educator in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound disc. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 39 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Gallery directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Monumental drawings by sculptors : Richard Fishman, Jene Highstein, Richard Nonas, Richard Serra, William Tucker, Mia Westerlund Roosen : [exhibition] / curated by Judith Van Wagner
