The Bowdoin College Museum of Art has announced a gift of more than three hundred works from the contemporary art collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel.

Comprising works by nearly seventy artists — including Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Julian Schnabel, James Siena, Pat Steir, and Richard Tuttle, as well as paintings by the Vogels themselves — the gift will enable the museum to represent the evolving history of minimal, post-minimal, and conceptual art practice from the mid-twentieth to the early twenty-first century. Works on paper represent the majority of the gift, which also includes photography by Richard Long, ceramics by Michael Lucero, and sculpture by Merrill Wagner.

"There is nothing more important for campus museums than to challenge and inspire their audiences with ambitious artwork," said Anne Collins Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, "and we feel strongly that the opportunity to see the works from the Vogel Collection here at Bowdoin, where students and the public can have a sustained experience with such material, has transformative potential."

The Vogels, who began collecting art in the early 1960s, gave a portion of their collection to the National Gallery of Art in 1992. In 2008, in concert with the National Gallery, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, they launched The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works to Fifty States initiative to distribute fifty works to one institution in each of the fifty states. Their gift to the Bowdoin College Museum of Art is among the largest gifts they have made since their gift to the National Gallery.

"This donation represents a true highlight in the giving of our collection," said Dorothy Vogel. "I take pleasure knowing that artworks included here, by leading American artists, have the capacity to inspire many generations of audiences, from students to locals, to a broad range of international visitors."