Collectorspace presents Herb and Dorothy

HERB & DOROTHY Trailer from Herb & Dorothy on Vimeo.

Directed and produced by Megumi Sasaki, Herb and Dorothy (2008) tells the extraordinary story of Herbert Vogel, a postal clerk, and Dorothy Vogel, a librarian, who managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history with very modest means. In the early 1960s, when very little attention was paid to minimalist and conceptual art, Herb and Dorothy quietly began purchasing the works of unknown artists. Devoting all of Herb’s salary to purchase art they liked, and living on Dorothy’s paycheck alone, they continued collecting artworks guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Within these limitations, they proved themselves curatorial visionaries; most of those they supported and befriended went on to become world-renowned artists including Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert Mangold, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi, and Lawrence Weiner.1

After years of collecting, the Vogels accumulated a collection that filled every corner of their rent-controlled apartment. In 1992, they decided to move their entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and gifted the vast majority of it to the institution. However, they continued collecting. Many of the works they acquired appreciated so significantly over the years that their collection of more than 4,500 artworks is now worth millions of dollars. Still, the Vogels never sold a single piece. In late 2008, they launched The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty Statesalong with the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The program donated 2,500 works to 50 institutions across 50 US states, and was accompanied by a book of the same name.

The core message of Herb & Dorothy is “you don’t have to be a Rockefeller to collect art.” Collectorspace presents this 89 minute-long film with Turkish subtitles at a well-attended artfair in Istanbul.

***

Herb and Dorothy received the Golden Starfish Award for the Best Documentary Film and Audience Award from the 2008 Hamptons International Film Festival. It has also received Audience Awards from the 2008 SILVERDOCS Film Festival and the 2009 Philadelphia Cinefest. Palm Springs International Film Festival named Herb & Dorothy one of their “Best of Fest” films in 2009.

^1 www.herbanddorothy.com