I watched a fantastic art-house film last weekend simply titled ‘Herb and Dorothy‘.

It’s an extraordinary story of Herbert Vogel, a postal clerk, and his wife Dorothy Vogel, a librarian, who managed to build one of the most important  contemporary art collections in history on a very modest income.  In New York in the early 1960′s little interest was shown to Minimalist and Conceptual Art and it was at this time that Herb and Dorothy began buying the works of ‘unknown’  artists.  Living on Dorothy’s librarian pay packet and devoting all of Herb’s salary to purchase art they continued collecting for many years.  They were guided by only 2 rules:  the piece had to be affordable to them and it had to be small enough to fit inside their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment.

The ‘unknown’ artists who were in later years to become very very famous became Herb and Dorothy’s close friends and they spent many nights and weekend traipsing around Soho visiting working artists and talking art.

The couple bought works directly from artists and only occasionally bought through dealers causing some ill will towards them at the time.  Dealers and some artists thought they were being exploited as the Vogel’s drove a hard bargain around what they would pay for a piece.

They amassed a collection of close to 5,000 works which eventually in 1992 was gifted to the American National Gallery of Art.  This gallery as chosen as they didn’t charge admittance fees to view works, they didn’t sell donated pieces and they wanted their art to belong to the people.  Herb and Dorothy were aligned with these values.

This film is well worth a watch for artists and art lovers/collectors alike.  The  love of Minimalist and Conceptual art -  which is so often completely misunderstood, is incredible and inspiring.

K