INDIANAPLOIS, IN.- The Indianapolis Museum of Art will open the exhibition Collected Thoughts: Works from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, which will run December 12, 2008 to April 12, 2009 in the IMA’s McCormack Forefront Galleries. The exhibition will showcase 50 works of contemporary art recently donated to the Museum by New York-based collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, who famously amassed one of the most complex private collections of contemporary art with only a modest budget.

Collected Thoughts is the first museum exhibition to present works from the national gift program “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States.” The gifts to the IMA are among 2,500 works from the Vogel Collection being distributed throughout the nation by the program. With the help of the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the program will distribute 50 works to a selected art institution in each of the 50 states. The IMA exhibition will offer a one-time-only opportunity to see all 50 works together. When the show closes, the Vogel gifts will be displayed in the context of the Museum’s larger collection. The exhibition is sponsored by The Penrod Society.

New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel began to collect contemporary artwork in the early 1960s and amassed a rare and insightful collection of more than 4,000 works by 170 contemporary artists over a period of more than 40 years. By using Dorothy’s salary as a librarian to pay bills, the Vogels were able to devote Herbert’s earnings as a postal worker to the purchase of art. Complementing the IMA’s holdings in abstract and minimalist works from the 1960s, the gifts to the Museum from the Vogel Collection include primarily works on paper from the late 1960s to 2000, by artists such as Lynda Benglis, James Bishop, Robert Mangold, Elizabeth Murray, Edda Renouf and Richard Tuttle, among others.

“We’re thrilled to celebrate the arrival of this remarkable collection at the IMA through the exhibition Collected Thoughts,” said Sarah Urist Green, assistant curator of contemporary art at the IMA. “The Vogels’ love of art and dedication to artists will be strongly evident in this exhibition, giving us a rare glimpse into their innovative approach to collecting.”

On December 11, 2008, the Vogels will visit the Museum for a public screening of the new documentary film “Herb and Dorothy,” recent "Best Documentary" winner at the 2008 Hamptons Film Festival, in the Tobias Theater at 6:30 p.m. The screening will be followed by a brief Q&A with the Vogels in the Tobias Theater and a cocktail reception in Pulliam Great Hall beginning at 8 p.m.