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Herbert and Dorothy Vogel hardly fit the stereotype of art collectors.

He was a postal clerk.

She was a librarian.

But this seemingly ordinary New York couple built one of the most significant collections of contemporary art in history.

The Vogels' passion for art — and their desire to share it with others — has touched the Triad.

UNCG's Weatherspoon Art Museum is the only North Carolina institution to receive 50 pieces from the Vogel collection. It will exhibit them sometime in the next few years.

The gift comes through "The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States," with 50 works going to an art institution in each state.

To celebrate and share the Vogels' story, the Weatherspoon will host the April 16 state premiere of "Herb and Dorothy," an award-winning documentary about them.

Meet the Vogels and their collection.

Building a collection

New York artist Lucio Pozzi sets the scene early in Megumi Sasaki's film "Herb and Dorothy."

Pozzi quotes a conversation with a friend in the late 1960s.

"See those two people?" Pozzi's friend said, pointing out the Vogels. "You would never think of it, but they are among the biggest collectors of new art in New York."

Herb Vogel had been taking classes in art history and painting when he met Dorothy in 1960. He introduced her to his love of art, taking her to the National Gallery of Art on their 1962 Washington honeymoon.

They developed budding talents as abstract painters, then turned their attention to buying others' art instead.

They lived on Dorothy Vogel's paycheck, spending Herb's on affordable works of unknown artists, mostly drawings.

Although they became known as collectors of art in minimal and conceptual styles, they bought figurative and expressionist art, too.

"I didn't know how good it was or how bad it was," Herb says in the film. "I liked the idea of something that wasn't done before."

They filled their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment with works by Pozzi, Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert and Sylvia Mangold, Lynda Benglis and Robert Barry, to name a few.

Although not every artist in their collection would become renowned, those did.

"I never thought that the artists we collected in those days would become so famous," Dorothy Vogel says in the film.

Their dealings went beyond business: They formed lasting friendships. Artists gave them gifts for birthdays and anniversaries. Christo and Jeanne-Claude once gave them a collage as a thank-you for taking care of their cat.

Word of the collection spread, and its works began appearing in exhibitions.

By the early 1990s, more than 2,000 works filled their apartment's every nook — walls, ceilings, boxes, piles, even under the bed.

That's when the National Gallery of Art first acquired some of the collection through partial purchase and gift.

Since then, the Vogels have donated or pledged 1,100 works to the National Gallery.

But the couple's collection had passed 4,000, more than the gallery could absorb. So, with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Arts, they launched "Fifty Works for Fifty States."

Herb, now 86, and Dorothy, now 73, would donate 2,500 works by 177 artists — mostly drawings but also paintings, sculpture, photographs and prints.

One art institution per state would receive about 40 drawings and 10 other objects –– including the Weatherspoon, recognized for its modern and contemporary art.

The Vogels had visited the Weatherspoon in the 1990s.

"The Weatherspoon is very well known for its interest in contemporary drawings, and the Vogels were aware of that," said Ruth Fine, a curator at the National Gallery. "They felt it was a marvelous collection and felt it would be a really good fit."

The Weatherspoon's works

On a rainy March day, the Vogels' art covered tables in Weatherspoon's Dillard Room.

The unusual mix by 24 artists included drawings and various paints and a small cube of peanut shells, oil, enamel, wire and matchsticks.

Staffers Heather Moore and Lynn Sokoloski and graduate assistant Ashley Boycher began to document, measure and photograph each piece, before putting them in storage.

As they worked, thrilled museum director Nancy Doll took her first look.

Doll hasn't estimated its monetary worth, but the Vogel collection is valuable in other ways.

It adds new artists to Weatherspoon holdings, such as Tuttle, Barry and Benglis, Doll said. It adds works by artists already in Weatherspoon's collection and particularly to its drawings by sculptors.

Doll enthusiastically pointed out five groupings of Tuttle watercolor drawings.

"At this point, we never would have been able to afford works of his," Doll said.

The same goes for sculptor Benglis. The gift adds two Benglis works of ink and wax on paper.

"We have been looking at her sculpture for years and have never been able to find a piece we wanted that we could afford," Doll said.

It now also has two Barry works on paper: a diptych of purple and red squares of acrylic white ink and gouache and a blue work in tempera bordered by graphite printing.

Among drawings by sculptors is one by Richard Nonas, titled "Dog Leg Shorty."

"We have a piece of his sculpture in our collection, and it would be nice to show them together," Doll said.

The Vogel agreement calls for an exhibition within five years. Doll hasn't set a date.

"Now, we have to raise money to get everything framed," she said.

Art lessons

New York filmmaker Megumi Sasaki met the Vogels in 2004 and decided to tell their story.

She thought it would take a year. It took four.

Early on, she hit a snag.

"We asked them, 'Why do you like this particular artist? What is the appeal of this piece of art?' " Sasaki said.

"They wouldn't say nothing more than, 'Because we like it. Because it's beautiful.' How can I make a documentary about collectors who wouldn't be able to explain or articulate about their collection?"

Then Pozzi, the artist, offered advice.

" 'Why should you explain art? What's the need to verbalize art? Herb and Dorothy only look, look and look. That's their way of communicating with art and artists,' " Sasaki quotes him as saying.

"I started paying attention to how they look at art, instead of how they talk about it.

"This awakening moment means that the message of the film is accessibility to art. You can simply say, 'I like it because it's beautiful.' "

Sasaki, too, wondered at first whether the Vogels' collection was all, indeed, beautiful. How can a small piece of rope, for example, be beautiful?

Then she saw the Indianapolis Museum of Art display its Vogel pieces, arranged by a curator and properly lit. "It was absolutely beautiful," Sasaki said.

Instead of collecting more, the Vogels now focus on disbursing their art to selected institutions.

Through Sasaki's 87-minute film, the Vogels teach lessons to would-be collectors.

You don't have to be rich or an art school graduate. Take time to look. Get to know local artists. Trust your eyes and instinct.

Beyond that, Sasaki says, "The most important message of the film is the triumph of passion and love and the celebration of life.

"You may not have a lot of money, and your job may be boring. But if you have a passion and follow it, life can be fulfilling."

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com.

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