Cheryl Laemmle, Pek for Herb—Happy Birthday, 1997. Encaustic and pigment on canvas, 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm). Yale University Art Gallery, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. © Cheryl Laemmle
Herbert and Dorothy Vogel’s 550-square-foot Brooklyn apartment gradually became filled with such important art that sculptor Richard Nonas quipped “when curators came from Europe [in the 1970s and early 1980s], they visited the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, and the Vogels’ apartment.” When their collection grew so large that the art began squeezing them out, the Vogels decided in 1990 to transfer some 2,000 works to the National Gallery of Art. They continued to collect, adding 2,000 more works. In 2008, they worked with the National Gallery to develop the Fifty Works for Fifty States program in which the couple distributed art to institutions in each state. That program was the subject of the second documentary about the couple Herb and Dorothy 50×50 (the first was 2008’s Herb and Dorothy).
The works currently on view at the Yale University Art Gallery are the Vogels’ gift to Connecticut. This student-curated show includes not only works from the Vogel Collection, but also Yale-owned art that complements or fills in the gaps. Coming in at just under eighty pieces, it is soundly organized around the themes of mark and measure, surface and space, and color and expression. While the Vogels were primarily interested in minimalist and conceptual works, they also collected the neoclassicism of Will Barnet and Lois Dodd’s expressionist views of nature.
Much has been made of the Vogels’ ability to acquire blue chip names on a modest budget. Dorothy worked as a librarian and they lived on her salary, while Herbert’s paycheck as a postal worker went to buy art. The collection they built on instinct came mostly out of friendships with the artists themselves. While the Vogels were familiar faces in New York galleries during the 1970s, they also frequented the artists’ studios, buying small works from mostly unknowns who became lifelong friends.
The Vogels can’t be separated from the art they collected. But the fact that their art had been an intimate part of their lives and has now passed into the public forum raises tantalizing questions. Gifts like Richard Tuttle’s Dorothy’s Birthday Present (1991) or Cheryl Laemmle’s Pek for Herb—Happy Birthday (1997) carry the connotation of mementos or souvenirs dashed off for private enjoyment. How might this compare to a Renaissance painting commissioned for private devotion? How do we perceive Peter Campus’s Untitled (1974) now on a gallery wall, surrounded by ample space, in contrast to its original position, precariously hung among the other works suspended from the swinging doors in the Vogels’ kitchen?
Richard Tuttle, Loose Leaf Notebook Drawing, 1980–82. Watercolor on loose-leaf paper, 10 1/2 x 7 15/16 in. (26.6 x 20.2 cm). Yale University Art Gallery, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. © Richard Tuttle, courtesy Pace Gallery
Although it is an overused word, the prevalent theme of the collection is dialogue. This originated in the Vogels’ conversation with artists, sharing ideas and empathy and brokering a sale. Inside their tiny apartment with artworks hung floor to ceiling, the dialogue must have been little short of undifferentiated clamoring. At Yale, the conversation takes a fresh turn when these works are viewed in the inimitable space of Louis Kahn’s 1953 building.
The triangular spaces of Kahn’s ceiling, some open, some closed, reinforce ideas of volume and geometry that underpin so much of this art. Sol LeWitt’s Maquette for Standing Open Structure, Black (early 1960s), Open Geometric (cube) 3x3x3 (1979), Spiral (1965–66), and A Square for Each Day of the Seventies (1980) sport openly with volume in two and three dimensions. Donald Judd’s Untitled (1969) of folded galvanized iron is described as “[occupying] actual space and [rejecting] all representational or allusive content.” This humble object sits directly on the floor, well out of the viewer’s line of sight, and seems in danger of being kicked. Likewise, Carl Andre’s 76 Waterbody (1973) with its small flat planks of rusted steel laid out in a line from the wall. Unimposing and easily disturbed, these works seem to beg to be removed or relocated from their present spaces, making them perfect companions to Lucio Pozzi’s nearby pieces with their investigations of surfaces and boundaries.
The Vogels were great champions of Richard Tuttle, collecting some 100 of his pieces. Nineteen watercolors from the Loose Leaf Notebook Drawings (1980–82) cover one wall of the gallery. These self-effacing, gestural drawings done on lined notebook paper say as much about the puckering effects of water as anything else. But in the exhibition catalogue, one of these drawings is reproduced, enlarged, and cropped to fill an entire page. Suddenly, there is power and intensity to its irregular black and green brushstrokes, and the hieroglyph stamps out the lines of the notebook paper—just as Walter Benjamin prophesied, there has been a shift in perception due to mechanical reproduction.
Edda Renouf, Spring Poem, 1995. Graphite, pastel, and incised lines on paper, 9 1/4 x 6 3/4 in. (23.5 x 17.1 cm). Yale University Art Gallery, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. © Edda Renouf
Edda Renouf—her works appear in all fifty of the Vogel gifts—is a standout in this exhibit. You have to look closely at the all-over black of 14 Incised Lines (1974–75) to perceive where Renouf has pulled out fibers from the cotton paper and encrusted the resulting fissures with black chalk. Point Progression (1973) and two outstanding graphite works by the artist’s father, Edward Renouf, show that they both share a fascination with pulling in the viewer and emphasizing the patience and methodic application that goes into making art. A later work by Edda, Spring Poem (1995), is a Forrest Bess-like deconstruction of marks and fragments. The Renouf works all share an ineffable sense of poise and grace.
While the curators’ explanation of how Dorothea Rockburne made the etching Locus (1972) is interesting, it doesn’t quite clarify how printing and folding could create this marvel of subtlest color and texture. This cerebral work is part of Rockburne’s ongoing investigation of “paper as a metaphysical object.” (“Drawing Which Makes Itself,” a show of Rockburne’s recent works, is on view at MOMA through February 2.)
The first work that the Vogels purchased after they were married was a small sculpture by John Chamberlain, Untitled (1962), now at the National Gallery of Art. The Yale show includes one of similar dimensions from its own collection: Hawthorne (1959). Having recently seen the spectacular massive Chamberlains in Marfa, Texas, I can attest that crushed car parts also succeed in desk-size editions.
Joel Shapiro is represented here by Untitled (2002), a sculpture that shows the changes the artist experienced after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The sense of tension and energy usually found in Shapiro’s work is replaced here by a tender, fragile string of blocks and wire, another work that could be easily disturbed by a passerby. It would seem that its configuration, if so random an arrangement merits such a name, would alter with every installation.
So often, our eyes pass right over the small print on wall labels that state the donor or collection from which an artwork originated. The Vogel Collection reminds us that real art is available for anyone who cares to look, and you don’t have to be a multimillionaire to own it.
Many Things Placed Here and There: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection opened at the Yale University Art Gallery on August 23, 2013 and remains on view through March 2, 2014.