Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Donald S. Vogel
Nude with Green Hair

circa 1978

About the Item

Donald Vogel’s paintings reflect his interest in seeking beauty in life and in sharing pleasure with his viewers. Vogel entreats us to "rejoice and celebrate each new day, knowing it is a gift in itself, and produce something of worth to be shared. That is the life that has served this artist's pilgrimage." Donald S. Vogel has been a set designer and technical director in the theater, a fine art dealer, and a writer, but first and foremost he is a painter. From a young age he was intrigued by the possibilities of creating images. The excitement and pleasure derived from the act of creation continued to be the force that compelled him to paint throughout his life. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Donald S. Vogel began his formal art training at the Witte Memorial Museum in San Antonio when he was seventeen. His training, under the watchful eye of Eleanor Onderdonk, was briefly interrupted by a move to Washington, DC , where he took drawing classes at The Corcoran School of Art . He returned to San Antonio to finish high school and continued studying under Onderdonk. After graduation, he moved to Chicago in 1936 to enroll in The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist rooms of the Institute, a new world opened up to him, one that would forever influence the direction of his work. He saw art that dealt with the effects of atmosphere and light. The subjects and techniques used by these painters conveyed a sense of happiness, exuberance, and pleasure, which offered a stark contrast to the world outside stifled by the Great Depression. While studying at the Art Institute, Vogel roomed at the Artist Community House where many students lived. This environment served as a counterpoint to the academic training he received at the Institute. It afforded the students the freedom to discuss issues in contemporary art, and freely experiment with unconventional ideas and techniques. Most importantly, this fertile environment intensified Vogel's commitment to paint. Feeling the pinch of the Depression, Vogel left the Art Institute in 1940, and was accepted on the WPA Easel Project. This allowed him the luxury of drawing and painting from dawn to dusk. The freedom to paint at all hours focused his interest on the seemingly endless variations of light and atmosphere. With unlimited use of a model, he produced thousands of figure drawings until, eventually freed from the necessity of working from life, he began to paint purely from his imagination. In 1942, Vogel moved to Dallas. The previous year, while he was still living in Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts had given Vogel a one-person show; in 1943, shortly after his arrival in Dallas, the DMFA gave him another. While working first as a set designer and then as technical director at the Dallas Little Theater, Vogel spent his free time at the easel. During the 1940's he gained recognition in the art community by promoting the work of fellow artists and winning coveted purchase awards and prizes in the Texas General and Allied Arts Exhibitions for his own paintings. In 1951, Vogel and his wife Peggy, alongside Dallas arts patron Betty McLean, opened the Betty McLean Gallery. It was the first gallery in Texas to deal in modern art on an international level. In 1954, the Vogels moved to a five-acre site north of Dallas and opened Valley House Gallery. The new setting at Valley House deeply inspired Vogel, serving as a source for ideas, and providing a place of serenity and contemplation. Vogel's work is characterized by his love of color, and his fascination with the changing qualities of light. A favorite subject, often revisited during the latter part of his career, is the greenhouse. He first experimented with this subject in 1976, and began using it in earnest in 1978. Having worked in a hothouse during his youth, he found it a natural subject for exploring the effects of atmosphere, light, and color. Like Monet's pond at Giverny, Vogel's greenhouses have become his signature: an imaginary place of endless fascination. Vogel produced many catalogues for gallery artists but he had never written for himself. In 1989, he penned two autobiographical short stories and published them under the title Charcoal and Cadmium Red. He found writing to be as challenging a process as painting. During his eighth decade, he wrote and painted with equal intensity. “The agony and ecstasy I felt while producing each work was welcomed, as each required the other to fulfill the quest. And the quest remains to produce works that should delight the eye, give pause for thought, heighten the spirit, and sense the awareness of our being,” wrote Donald S. Vogel in 1998, on the occasion of his Retrospective exhibition and catalogue. Donald S. Vogel's work is included in the following collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Beaumont Museum of Fine Art, Beaumont, Texas Charles Goddard Center, Ardmore, Oklahoma Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas Fine Arts Museum of the South, Mobile, Alabama Ft. Worth Art Association, Ft. Worth, Texas Old Jail Foundation, Albany, Texas Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma The Pennsylvania Trust, Radnor, Pennsylvania Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas This painting is unframed; the price does not include a frame.
  • Creator:
    Donald S. Vogel (1917-2004, American)
  • Creation Year:
    circa 1978
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 14 in (35.56 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Dallas, TX
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: A03951stDibs: LU2573045863
More From This SellerView All
  • Drowning Out the Sea
    By Barnaby Fitzgerald
    Located in Dallas, TX
    A Professor of painting at Southern Methodist University in Dallas since 1984, Barnaby Fitzgerald spent his childhood in Italy before receiving a Magistero degree in printmaking at t...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Paintings

    Materials

    Egg Tempera, Panel

  • Reclining Figures
    By Otis Huband
    Located in Dallas, TX
    Born in 1933, Otis Huband declared his intention to be an artist at age 6. He earned his BFA and MFA at Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William & Mary, now Virginia...
    Category

    2010s American Modern Abstract Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Walking Nude
    By Donald S. Vogel
    Located in Dallas, TX
    Donald Vogel’s paintings reflect his interest in seeking beauty in life and in sharing pleasure with his viewers. Vogel entreats us to "rejoice and celebrate each new day, knowing it...
    Category

    1960s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Panel

  • Two Nudes with Still Life
    By Donald S. Vogel
    Located in Dallas, TX
    Donald Vogel’s paintings reflect his interest in seeking beauty in life and in sharing pleasure with his viewers. Vogel entreats us to "rejoice and celebrate each new day, knowing it...
    Category

    1950s American Modern Nude Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Panel

  • Interior with Figures
    By Arthur Osver
    Located in Dallas, TX
    Arthur Osver studied at Northwestern University and the Art Institute of Chicago. Osver was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1952. He taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, Columbia Un...
    Category

    1930s American Modern Interior Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Canvas

  • Open Door
    By John Hartell
    Located in Dallas, TX
    Valley House Gallery is honored to present a selection of paintings from the estate of American artist, John Hartell (1902-1995). John Hartell taught two disciplines at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York: freshman architecture and graduate painting. He was a much-loved professor there from 1930 until his retirement in 1967; one of his most illustrious students is the architect Richard Meier. As an artist, Hartell's first solo exhibition was in 1937 at Kleeman Gallery in New York. He exhibited at Kraushaar Galleries in New York for four decades, beginning in 1943. The Hartell Gallery at Cornell University, under the Sibley Dome, is named for him. In describing John Hartell, the artist Michael Boyd...
    Category

    Late 20th Century American Modern Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

You May Also Like
  • Alexander Redein FauvistNude Portrait, Titled "At Home"
    By Alexander Redein
    Located in Larchmont, NY
    Alexander Redein (American, 1912 - 1990) At Home, 1975 Oil on board 12 x 15 3/4 in. Framed: 17 1/2 x 21 3/8 in. Signed lower right: Redein Inscribed verso: At Home 1975 Alex Redein ...
    Category

    1970s American Modern Interior Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Antique American School Framed Artist Studio Nude Woman Portrait Oil Painting
    Located in Buffalo, NY
    Antique American modernist interior scene with a nude woman oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Image size, 22L x 26H.
    Category

    1960s Modern Nude Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Antique Signed American School Modernist Nude Woman Cubist Portrait Oil Painting
    Located in Buffalo, NY
    Amazing and rare 1946 American school painting. Super modern and well painted. Oil on board. Framed. Signed.
    Category

    1940s Modern Nude Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Modernist Interior Kneeling Female Nude Figure Bezael Schatz Israeli Painting
    By Bezalel Schatz
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Genre: Israeli Subject: Abstract Medium: Oil Surface: Canvas Dimensions: 24" x 20" Bezalel (nicknamed “Lilik”) Schatz was an Israeli artist, son of Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. Born in 1912 to Boris Schatz, and his wife Olga, an art critic. From an early age, he demonstrated considerable talent for gymnastics and music, but especially for art. He grew up in a home in which artists were a constant presence, he was introduced to Israel’s most prominent leaders, and the first public exhibition of his artwork coincided with his Bar Mitzvah celebration. He attended the Gymnasia in Jerusalem and at age 14 completed his studies at the Bezalel School. In 1930, Bezalel joined his father on a fundraising tour of Europe and the United States, where they also exhibited their artwork and that of Bezalel students. Following his father’s death in 1932, Bezalel left Israel for a period of about two decades. He spent the first four years studying at the Grand Chaumiere Academy in Paris. There, given the fairly conservative artistic views he had acquired at home and school – where modernism was denounced – he had to pave his own way as an artist among his peers. Between 1937 and 1951, Bezalel resided in the U.S. Near the end of WWII, he worked in a California shipyard, and it was there he met his future wife, Louise. He was also introduced to the novelist Henry Miller in California, and their friendship blossomed into a creative collaboration. The artist May Ray...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Modern Nude Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • 'Nude in Ivory and Coral', Large Mid-Century Expressionist Figural Oil
    By Sears, Roebuck & Company
    Located in Santa Cruz, CA
    Signed lower right "Sears" (American, 20th century) and dated 1960. A substantial, Expressionist style figural oil showing a partially-draped woman seated at a dressing-table and br...
    Category

    1960s Post-Impressionist Nude Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Robert Phillipp "Corner of My Studio" Original Painting c.1968
    By Robert Philipp
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    Robert Phillipp "Corner of My Studio" Original Painting c.1968 Original oil on canvas. Dimensions 12" x 16". The frame measures 16" x 20". Signed low...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Impressionist Interior Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

Recently Viewed

View All