Fifty Works for the First State: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection

June 19, 2010 – August 29, 2010

This exhibition celebrates a recent gift of art from the renowned collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. Starting in the 1960s, the couple amassed an outstanding collection of more than 4,000 works, staying within a modest budget (he was a postal clerk and she was a librarian) and extraordinary space constraints (a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan). While they are particularly known for collecting the minimal and conceptual art of Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and Robert Barry, the Vogels also collected a wide range of post-minimal, figurative, and expressionist work produced between the 1960s and the 1990s.

As part of the Fifty Works for Fifty States program, the Delaware Art Museum received drawings, paintings, sculptures, and collages by 23 artists: Stephen Antonakos, Will Barnett, Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, Loren Calaway, Michael Vinson Clark (Clark V. Fox), Charles Clough, Kathleen Cooke, Richard Francisco, Don Hazlitt, Stewart Hitch, Tom Holland, Martin Johnson, Ronnie Landfield, Robert Mangold, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Judy Rifka, Pat Steir, Donald Sultan, Daryl Trivieri, Richard Tuttle, and Joe Zucker.

Fifty Works for Fifty States was launched by the Vogels and the National Gallery of Art, with support the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This program is distributing 2,500 works from the Vogels’ collection of contemporary art throughout the nation, with 50 works going to a selected institution in each of the 50 states.

This exhibition was organized by the Delaware Art Museum.

In Delaware, this exhibition is made possible, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Learn more about the Vogel Collection, which is being distributed to 50 museums in 50 states, at www.vogel5050.org

Above: Hats, 1979. Donald Sultan (born 1951). Graphite and vinyl asbestos tile on wood, 12 x 12 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, 2008.

Right: Water Sounds Totem, 1982. Edda Renouf (born 1943). Acrylic on Belgian linen, 90 x 16 1/4 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, 2008.

Violet/Black Zone Study, 1996
Robert Mangold (born 1937)
Acrylic, charcoal, and graphite on three attached sheets of paper, 30 1/4 x 66 7/8 inches
Delaware Art Museum, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, 2008
© Robert Mangold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.