The Vogels

Howard Simon
Dorothy Vogel
ca. 1965-70
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Richard Tuttle
Herbert Vogel
1974
painted wire
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Dorothy Alexander
Dorothy Vogel - 7-sided Figure
1974
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Dorothy Alexander
Dorothy Vogel - Clock Tower
1975
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Dorothy Alexander
Dorothy Vogel - Subway
1976
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Dorothy Alexander
Herbert Vogel - Balcony, 86th Street
1977
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Dorothy Alexander
Dorothy Vogel - Metropolitan
1977
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Dorothy Alexander
Dorothy Vogel - Bloomingdale's
1979
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Michael Clark
Collected Collector (Portrait of Herb)
ca. 1983
oil on linen
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Michael Clark
Collected Collector II (Portrait of Dorothy)
ca. 1983
oil on linen
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Herbert and Dorothy Vogel
1987
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Daryl Trivieri
Herb Vogel - study portrait
1989
acrylic on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Daryl Trivieri
Dorothy Vogel - second study
1989
oil and acrylic on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Daryl Trivieri
Dorothy and Herb Vogel
1989
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Michael Lucero
Dorothy as pre-Columbian Figure
1990
glazed earthenware
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Mariana Cook
Untitled (Portrait of Dorothy and Herb)
1999
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Lynda Benglis
Herbert and Dorothy Vogel
ca. 2002
C-print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Improving My German

All my life I have been trying to improve my German.

At last my German is better!

But now I am old and ill.

I will die soon.

But when they take me to my grave,

I will have,

somewhere in my brain,

better German.

– Lydia Davis, from Into the Weeds (Yale University Press, 2025) 

Visual Relics (1957-1962)

Arthur Tress
Merry-Go-Round, Coney Island
1957
gelatin silver print
Brooklyn Museum

Aaron Siskind
Chicago Façade
1957
gelatin silver print
Yale University Art Gallery

Irving Penn
Ivy Compton-Burnett
1958
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, London

Sidney and Abraham Waintrob
Adelaide Milton de Groot
1958
gelatin silver print
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Sidney and Abraham Waintrob
Lorrie Goulet
ca. 1958
gelatin silver print
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Sidney and Abraham Waintrob
Peggy Guggenheim
1959
gelatin silver print
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Sidney and Abraham Waintrob
Edward Hopper
1961
gelatin silver print
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Harry Shunk
Yves Klein saut dans la vide, Paris
1960
gelatin silver print
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Bruce Davidson
Boy Sipping Tea, Not a Bum
1960
gelatin silver print
Yale Center for British Art

Bruce Davidson
London
1960
gelatin silver print
Yale Center for British Art

Mark Strizic
Buckley's, Bourke Street, Melbourne
ca. 1960
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Diane Arbus
A Very Thin Man in Central Park
1961
gelatin silver print
Brooklyn Museum

Rollie McKenna
Anne Sexton
1961
gelatin silver print
Yale University Art Gallery

Athol Shmith
Vivien Leigh as Camille
1961
hand-colored gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Lee Friedlander
Baltimore
1962
gelatin silver print
Yale University Art Gallery

Bert Stern
Marilyn Monroe
1962
C-print
Brooklyn Museum

Then maddened by the fates, unhappy Dido

calls out at last for death; it tires her

to see the curve of heaven. That she may

not weaken in her plan to leave the light,

she sees, while placing offering on the altars

with burning incense – terrible to tell –

the consecrated liquid turning black,

the outpoured wine becoming obscene blood.

– Dido's misery, from Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid, translated by Allen Mandelbaum (1971)

Portrait-Making (Literal and Fanciful) - XIX

Anonymous French Artist
Head of a Woman
18th century
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Giuseppe Baldrighi
The Artist with his Wife
1757
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Antonio Canova
Bust of artist Giuseppe Bossi
1816
plaster
Detroit Institute of Arts

workshop of Antonio Canova
Self Portrait
ca. 1820-30
marble
(reduced copy of tomb bust)
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Man in Armour
1868
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Gustave Courbet
Woman fallen asleep over her Book
1849
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Paul Flandrin
Portrait of Hippolyte Flandrin
1835
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Mariano Fortuny after Anthony van Dyck
Van Dyck's Self Portrait with Sir Endymion Porter
ca. 1910
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Giovanni Antonio Greccolini
Head of a Warrior
before 1725
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous British Artist
Portrait of a Lady
(painted inside the lid of a small box)
ca. 1730-70
pigment on gold
Art Institute of Chicago

Walt Kuhn
Golden and Blue Bolero
1946
oil on canvas
Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri

Walt Kuhn
Lady in Robe
1935
oil on canvas
private collection

Nicolas de Largillière
Sheet of Studies
before 1746
drawing
Musée du Louvre

François Lemoyne
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1727
drawing
(study for painting, The Continence of Scipio)
Musée du Louvre

Jacobus van Looy
Copy of Mummy Portrait from Roman Egypt
ca. 1885-87
watercolor
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
Portrait Study of Dominique Vivant-Denon
ca. 1813
drawing
Musée du Louvre

David Vestal
Untitled (Woman at Mirror)
ca. 1940-49
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

"What fascinates me most in my profession, much much more than everything else, is the portrait, the modern portrait.  I look to achieve it with colour, and surely I am not the only one who looks for things in that direction.  I should like – you see, I am not at all saying that I can do it, but anyway, I try to – I should like to make portraits which would appear to people living a century from now like apparitions.  Therefore, I do not seek to achieve this through photographic resemblance but by our passionate expressions, by using our knowledge and our modern taste for colours as a means of expressing and intensifying the character."  

– Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to his sister Wilhelmina, 5 June 1890