LAS VEGAS - January 12, 2010 - The UNLV Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery is proud to have been selected as the Nevada home for The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States project. Included in the exhibit are works by Stephen Antonakos, Lynda Benglis, Richard Tuttle, and Bettina Werner.
"We are honored to receive a gift of this magnitude and to be a part of such a historical project," said Jeffrey Koep, dean of the College of Fine Arts. "It is with great pride that we share this gift with the community, which is what Mr. and Mrs. Vogel intended when they created Fifty Works for Fifty States. We thank them for their generosity to UNLV, the Las Vegas community, and Nevada."
Civil servants by profession without independent financial means, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel have acquired some 4,000 objects, primarily drawings, since their marriage in 1962. Today these works constitute one of the most remarkable collections of contemporary art in America.
Their intention, as they began, was not to build "a collection" but rather to find works that they wanted to live with. Among the earliest acquisitions was a wall piece by Giuseppi Napoli-one of the few Herb made before he married Dorothy. They celebrated their engagement by selecting one of Pablo Picasso's ceramic vases together, and their initial purchase as a married couple was a sculpture by John Chamberlain. Eventually focusing on drawings, the Vogels nonetheless acquired works in other media reflective of the range of "their" artists' practices. Martin Johnson, for example, is represented in the collection by drawings, paintings, sculptures, and works on paper that incorporate collage and photography.
The art community's awareness of the limited funds the Vogels could devote to their acquisitions brought them considerable admiration, as did their enthusiastic response to a range of contemporary practices, which included work others found difficult to appreciate.
In 1992 the National Gallery of Art, Washington, announced an agreement that established the Gallery's stewardship of the Vogel's collection. Since then 1,100 paintings, objects, drawings, photographs, prints, and illustrated books have entered the Gallery's collection or are promised gifts. During this period, the Vogels have continued to acquire art (as purchases and gifts from artists), and their collection has doubled in size from some 2,400 works to approximately 4,000 objects. The sheer size of the collection-far too large to be reasonably placed in any one institution-led to the development of The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States project, which enables the Vogels to share the gift of their collection nationwide. This project has received essential support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery is located in the Alta Ham Fine Arts building on the UNLV campus and is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free.
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