USU’s art museum to show Vogel art documentary

Kristen Steiner

What began in 1962 with an innocent love of art unfolded over the next three decades into a 5,000-piece collection.

Tonight, Utah State University’s Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art will be showing “Herb and Dorothy: 50 x 50,” a documentary on nationally known art collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel, whose collection is now featured, in part, at USU’s art museum.

The film will be shown in the Kent Concert Hall at 6 p.m. followed by an in-person question and answer session with Dorothy Vogel and film producer, Megumi Sasaki.

 “It is an excellent opportunity for people to learn more about Herb and Dorothy Vogel and understand how they came to acquire so many pieces of work,” said Andrea DeHaan, the museum’s administrative coordinator.

Over the decades the couple has acquired more than 5,000 pieces of art, which, due to its growing size, was given to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in 1992.

In 2008, the couple announced each state would be the recipient of 50 works from the collection.

The documentary, which was directed and produced Sasaki, is a follow-up to her 2008 film, “Herb and Dorothy,” which explored the lives of the Vogels after they announced their national distribution of 2,500 pieces of art from their collection.

“Herb and Dorothy: 50 x 50,” produced in 2013, again by Sasaki, is a look into the Vogel’s lives and the end of their era of art collecting after their announcement and distribution of their gift of 50 pieces of art to each state in 2008.

“The documentary will really show who they were and how amazing they are,” said Steffanie Sanders, a post-graduate intern at the museum.

Sasaki highlights that the Vogels worked for the government for most of their adult lives as a postman and librarian. For them, the distribution of art throughout the nation was their way of giving back to the community.

After the screening of the documentary tonight, those in attendance will have the opportunity to be a part of a question and answer session with Dorothy Vogel and Sasaki.

The community is excited to have both of them here to gain a little more insight on the collection, Sanders said.

The exhibit, “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: 50 Works for 50 States,” holds 50 works of contemporary and modern art by well-known artists such as Pat Steir, Lynda Benglis, Charles Clough, Robert Barry and many more. All 50 works consist of different mediums ranging from acrylic paints and graphite sketches to oil paintings and colored pencil drawings.

The museum has had pieces of the collection prior to the opening of the Vogel exhibit, but this is the first time that all 50 pieces will be shown together, DeHaan said.

“With the whole collection you can now see the full exhibit and all the different types of art,” Sanders said. “They are not all the same topic so it is fun to see the diversity.”

The Vogel exhibit will be on display until Aug. 1 at the museum which is located on USU’s main campus.

More information regarding the exhibit and the film can be found at http://artmuseum.usu.edu/.