Visual Arts

The state of Texas is receiving a major gift of contemporary art from New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. And Texas isn't alone.

The University of Texas' Blanton Museum of Art was named the state recipient of the Vogels' "Fifty Works for Fifty States" program. Coordinating the campaign with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vogels are giving away 2,500 artworks from their collection of post-1960s art. Each of the 50 states will receive a portion of what is widely considered one of the best collections of minimalist and conceptual art in the nation.

"The gift is a good fit for the Blanton because it fills out our collection in terms of these areas," says Kathleen Brady, a representative for the Blanton. Elizabeth Murray, Richard Prince and Lawrence Weiner are among the more familiar names on the list of 26 artists whose works are included in the gift. Nearly all are from the United States. In the last three years, Ms. Murray, Mr. Prince and Richard Tuttle, whose work is also included, have been honored by career exhibitions at major American museums.

Those careers were nurtured by the Vogels, who focused on collecting minimalists and conceptualists before they were generally known. Herbert Vogel, 85, a former U.S. Postal Service employee, and Dorothy Vogel, 73, a retired librarian, collected the treasure trove by living off her salary while using his to purchase art. The Vogels were particular boosters of Mr. Tuttle and Lynda Benglis.

Twelve of the 14 drawings by Mr. Tuttle included in the Vogels' gift have a Texas connection. A series of spare geometric drawings called Fort Worth Work and numbered one through 10 feature planes of colored pencil on paper. Two other pieces are preparatory studies made in advance of Mr. Tuttle's first major museum exhibition in 1971 at the Dallas Museum of Art (then called the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts).

"This fine concentration of Tuttle's art in Austin will complement Dallas' own major public and private Tuttle holdings," says Charles Wylie, contemporary curator at the DMA.

Most of the pieces are drawings on paper in charcoal, ink and graphite, though some of the works reflect changing perspectives on art materials. Colored lecturer chalk, photo emulsion and incisions were some of the ways that these artists made marks on paper.

A two-piece steel sculpture by Richard Nonas is part of the gift. Mr. Weiner's 1992 Afloat consists of a pen with a box. Richard Pettibone's piece displays the wry humor of conceptual art: It's a silkscreen copy of Andy Warhol's notorious Marilyn Monroe silkscreen print, totally eradicating the notion of an original.

As a stipulation of the gift, the Blanton agreed to accept the whole lot into the museum's permanent collection. The Vogels also require that participating institutions show the gift in its entirety in an exhibit within five years.

Other institutions in the state were not approached about the gift. The Blanton had a strong working relationship with the Vogels. In 1997, they showed "From Minimal to Conceptual Art: Works From the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection" in what was then the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery in Austin.

Since 1992, the Vogels have collaborated with the publicly funded National Gallery on enhancing and distributing their collection. Today, that numbers about 4,000 works. Considered in addition to about 1,000 works owned by or promised to the National Gallery, the "Fifty Works for Fifty States" program amounts to a gift of nearly the couple's entire art collection.

Kriston Capps is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

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