Herb and Dorothy

"You don't have to be a Rockefeller to collect art."

Herb and Dorothy Vogel lived very simply in a small rent-controlled apartment in New York. Herb worked the graveyard shift as a mail sorter for the USPS (now retired). Dorothy was a librarian. They lived conservatively on simple means, with no children but an eccentric menagerie of cats, fish, and turtles. Looking at them or talking to them would reveal nothing especially interesting or important about this couple.

What makes this couple (and, therefore, this documentary) so interesting, then, is how such an unassuming couple could accumulate such a massive art collection. Over the course of several decades, the Vogels collected nearly 5,000 pieces of artwork from young artists – many of whom, such as Chuck Close, would become incredibly famous. They survived on one income and dedicated their other income to buying artwork from up and coming artists of the minimalist and conceptual art movements, which they stored in piles and stacks in their apartment. Ultimately, they decided to donate their collection to the National Gallery and to various museums throughout the country.

This documentary, directed by Megumi Sasaki, snuck up on me. I went into it cautiously pessimistic. Yet, I grew to care about Herb and Dorothy as human beings, accepting their strange but incredible eccentricity. We learn about the history of their relationship with each other, as well as their relationships with various artists. We also learn about the strategies they used to acquire pieces of artwork on their limited income, including haunting galleries almost daily, visiting the artists’ studios and buying drafts and process pieces, and, in one case, cat-sitting for an artist in exchange for a collage.

Part of what makes this documentary so powerful is the lack of a narrator explaining everything. Instead of Morgan Freeman or Alec Baldwin telling us how to feel about the Vogels, we are left to our own interpretations based on the words and actions of the Vogels themselves and the testimony of friends. We see Herb and Dorothy through the lens of who they are and what they do.

Without a narrator, though, the film exposes its only major weakness. There is no real narrative flow or structure to the movie. The sequences are put together thematically, not necessarily chronologically, so there are sometimes major jumps in time without any real explanation. There are also a few gaps in the Vogels’ history that are merely glazed over – namely the 1980’s. Yet, these structural problems do not necessarily inhibit the viewing of the film; they just require that the viewer make some inferences and connect a few dots (though we viewers are loath to do so, considering we are so often spoon-fed by the film industry).

This documentary is surprisingly touching and enjoyable. I learned a lot about artwork and art collection. But the true moral of the story that a couple – madly in love with each other – can accomplish things that individual experts and professionals can only dream of doing.