Collectors' Stories

If you are thinking about starting an art collection, or wondering how the contemporary art market became what it is today, the story of the Scull Collection is essential. In 1973, taxi magnate Robert Scull and his wife Ethel consigned part of their contemporary art collection to Sotheby’s in New York. The sale shocked the art world.

Herb and Dorothy Vogel were not wealthy collectors or art world insiders — he was a postal worker, she a librarian — yet they built one of the most important collections of contemporary art in American history. By living modestly and dedicating one salary entirely to buying works by emerging minimalist and conceptual artists, they amassed over 4,000 pieces that now belong to major museums across the United States.