HERB & DOROTHY

We are big movie watchers......and lately 'the husband' has found many very interesting documentaries on Netflix.  This particular one had me spell bound.

It's about Herb & Dorothy Vogel.  

Dorothy and Herbert Vogel led the sort of life that sounds like a New York legend: two state employees, living on less than fifty thousand dollars a year, manage to amass a collection of more than four thousand works of contemporary art. It’s hard to believe such a feat would be economically possible, but the Vogels were early enthusiasts who collected what was at first unpopular—inaccessible minimalist and conceptual works—and would now be worth millions. Not everyone in their collection was widely known, but many were: Richard Tuttle, Sol LeWitt, Jeanne-Claude and Christo. 

What is astonishing is that they gave it all away.....thousands of pieces of art went to museums so that others can enjoy it.  The collection of over 4,782 works was displayed in every square inch of space possible, the rest was stored in closets and under the bed in their rent controlled one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.  In 1991, the Vogels decided to transfer the entire collection to the National Gallery of Art because it charges no admission and doesn't sell donated works. In late 2008, they launched the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection:  Fifty Works for Fifty States along with the National Gallery of Art and the National Endowment for the Arts.  The program donated 2,500 works to 50 instituions across 50 states

Consider searching your movie providers to learn more about this amazing couple.