NEW YORK -- To get a handle on the extraordinary story of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, let's begin with a list.

It appeared in the January 1994 issue of a respected magazine called ARTnews and is, to be precise, a list of the world's 200 top art collectors. Not surprisingly, the list contains names like Rothschild, Getty, Mellon, Rockefeller and Baltimore's own Robert and Jane Meyerhoff; names associated with fortunes made in banking and industry and, quite often, inherited wealth.

But the "ARTnews 200" list also includes two names that rank among the world's most unlikely candidates: Herbert and Dorothy Vogel. Who, by the way, are known in the art world as just plain "Herb and Dorothy."

Herb, 71, is a retired postal worker; Dorothy, 59, is a retired librarian. And over the past 30 years they have quietly put together one of the most important collections of minimal, conceptual and post-'60s art in the world. They were buying works by the likes of Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, Donald Judd, Christo and others long before these artists' names were known. Of course, many people still don't recognize the names of the artists in the Vogel collection. But in the art world they are stars.

Which brings us to the obvious question: How could a New York City postal clerk and a Brooklyn librarian afford to do what usually is done by Rockefeller-type collectors?

The answer is simple. At least that's what the Vogels would have you believe.

"We lived on my salary," Dorothy says. "And we used Herbie's for buying the art. . . . It remains the same now that we're retired. We live on my pension check, and his pension goes to the art. It's worked out very well."

It helped, of course, that Herb and Dorothy were collecting minimal and conceptual art early in the game, long before it or the artists had gained fame and fortune. They were trailblazers, the kind of collectors who bought what they liked -- not what the art critics or art market liked.

But that raises another question: How did these two people who grew up in households devoid of art and who were born, as Dorothy has put it, not with silver spoons in their mouths but plastic ones, find themselves drawn to what might be the most difficult art of all to appreciate? So difficult that many people deride it, make fun of it.

"Well, that's OK, I don't mind that," says Herb. "It is difficult art. "It's even difficult for me. Even after 30 years, we still can't define it."

Dorothy, however, offers her definition of conceptual art. "Well, I know the general definition is when the idea is more important than the actual work. That the idea comes first. And then the artist, based on the idea, does the work. I think it's the ideas behind this kind of art that capture our imagination. But I also think what we've collected is very visual."

But what draws them to a particular piece of art? "Sometimes," says Dorothy, "I just like the way something looks. . . . You know, the way you feel when you buy a piece of jewelry or you buy clothes. You just like the way it looks. It just seems right."

Herb and Dorothy, both of whom top out at about 5 feet, met in 1960 at a reunion of people who had vacationed at Tamiment, a resort in the Poconos. "He was so cute," says Dorothy. "I liked him immediately." The feeling was mutual. They married in 1962 and, in what now seems a prophetic act, spent their honeymoon in Washington, where Herb -- who had studied art at night and aspired to be a painter -- introduced Dorothy to the treasures of the National Gallery of Art. Dorothy, who knew nothing about art, remembers the National Gallery "had a terrific place to eat."

They started collecting almost immediately, visiting galleries regularly each Saturday. Dorothy puts it this way: "The first thing we did when we got married was we got a cat. The next thing we did was buy a crushed metal car sculpture by John Chamberlain."

For most of their married life they've lived in a modest, one-bedroom apartment located in a Manhattan neighborhood dotted with bagel shops, fruit stands and one-hour photo shops. They share their seventh-floor apartment with seven cats, 20 turtles and approximately 19 fish.

It used to be more crowded. Until a few years ago, they also shared their apartment with more than 2,000 pieces of contemporary art they'd collected.

Apartment's a warehouse

"The apartment was really a warehouse," Dorothy says. Storage crates filled with prints and drawings were stashed under the bed, stored in closets, stacked in the living room.

"You should have seen it," says Herb. "It was from floor to ceiling. We just had little walkways through the living room. If you were a little heavy, you couldn't walk through at all."

"We had no living room," Dorothy says. "What little furniture we had we gave away."

Two years ago, they gave away something else: their art collection. Courted ardently by several important museums, the Vogels finally selected the National Gallery as the home in which their collection would take up permanent residence. In 1992 they pledged their collection in installments to the National Gallery. You can see part of Herb and Dorothy's collection there right now in the exhibition "From Minimal to Conceptual Art: Works from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection."

Herb and Dorothy have visited the exhibition several times. Even though some of their art has been exhibited there in the past, it's the first time they've seen such a large chunk of it on the walls of the National Gallery. Imagine it. Walking into the nation's premier museum, turning a corner and seeing your art collection so beautifully installed. And installed in a space where hanging the works of art high enough to be out of a cat's reach is not a consideration.

How does it feel to see such a validation of their life's work?

"It was very exhilarating," says Dorothy, setting down a pitcher of lemonade and a bottle of Snapple Raspberry Iced Tea on a small table. "It was a thrill."

"It's absolutely unbelievable," says Herb, who has on his lap a wildly purring Persian cat named Renoir. (Or perhaps it's Manet; they sort of look alike to the untrained eye.) "I think Dorothy said it all. Who would ever dream this would occur. We're thrilled they accepted our collection."

No more thrilled than the National Gallery was to be offered the Vogel Collection.

"The quality of art in the collection is excellent," says Ruth Fine, the National Gallery's curator of modern prints and drawings. "It's got wonderful early works by many of the artists who have since come to great prominence." The addition of pieces by such artists as Jennifer Bartlett, Mel Bochner, Dan Flavin and others also filled a big gap in the National Gallery's holdings. "Our collection of contemporary drawings was absolutely transformed both in number and content by these works."

Monetary value?

So much for the artistic value. What about the monetary value of the Vogel Collection?

"We can't really discuss that," Ms. Fine says. "It's obviously a very valuable collection."

For their part, the Vogels don't talk about what they paid for this piece or that piece. "I don't mention price," says Herb.

"I think what we did was priceless," says Dorothy. "I think the collection is priceless. And I hate putting a figure on that. The value to us has nothing to do with the monetary value people might place on it."

What the Vogels are is that rarest of commodities: They are pure collectors. In it only for the joy of art, not for the capital gains or investment value.

And they are not in it to hobnob with the social set. "We wouldn't fit into that kind of crowd," says Dorothy. "Our friends are mainly artists or people in the art world. They're not socialites."

"Not one socialite do I know," says Herb, laughing.

They have never sold anything from their collection -- even though doing so might have made them wealthy. A lot of people, it is suggested, would cash in on such a collection.

Herb laughs. "I don't hold that against them. Nor do I hold anything against rich collectors. It's just not us."

"People have asked us to sell," says Dorothy.

"I could have sold two things when the market was high and got a couple of million," says Herb, "but I wasn't interested."

Often, in discussing the Vogels, mention is made of how much they've "sacrificed" to collect this art.

Herb and Dorothy, who never had children, don't see it that way. "We've never considered anything we did a sacrifice," Dorothy says. "We always did what we wanted to do and lived the way we wanted to live."

They live mostly in their bedroom and a corner of the foyer between the kitchen and the fish tank where a small table and three red plastic chairs function as the conversation and dining area. It is the area, one assumes, where visiting artists were served TV dinners by Dorothy.

Herb and Dorothy are respected for their knowledge and integrity by the artistic community. And loved for their unassuming, unpretentious personalities.

"They are so knowledgeable, which is so rare in collectors," says Christo, the Bulgarian-born New York artist known for wrapping things like a bridge in Paris and 24 miles of northern California. He recalls the first time he met them:

"My wife and I emigrated to New York in 1964, and already the Vogels' names were appearing in magazines and newspapers. But we had no idea of what they were really like. One day they called us and said, 'We'd like to come to see your studio.' We got very excited because we think it's some very important, rich zTC collectors coming. And we hadn't been able to pay the rent for a few months. Herbert and Dorothy arrive and at that moment we understood right away who they were. . . . Since then Herbert and Dorothy have become like a family."

Artists are impressed

The way the Vogels live has made an impression on the artists who've visited their apartment. Richard Tuttle, who personally installed his "3rd Rope Piece" in Herb and Dorothy's apartment, recalls his first impressions. "I was just completely overwhelmed with the importance of animals in their lives. It meant for me -- and I don't expect anyone to understand this -- it meant for me that art is a living thing to them."

Even with most of the Vogels' art now at the National Gallery, their apartment is still a maze of bookshelves, boxes and filing cabinets filled with archival material, clippings and tapes from television interviews -- including one with Kathie Lee Gifford (before she was with Regis) that still makes Dorothy mad. Kathie Lee interviewed Herb -- not about the art -- but about adopting cats from the SPCA. Which is where the Vogels' cats -- Manet, Picasso, Renoir, Whistler, Corot, etc., etc. come from.

"It was a show about the Pets for the Elderly program of the SPCA," says Dorothy. "Kathie Lee didn't know Herbie was married and had six other cats. So she says to him, 'And you were lonely before you got the cat?' And then you see this sad face on Herbie and he says, 'Yes, pretty lonely.' How could he be lonely with me at home and all these other cats?"

"Dorothy was furious," says Herbie, who has been laughing out loud for about two minutes.

Recently, "60 Minutes" has been knocking on their door. Mike Wallace, to be specific. "He was very nice," says Dorothy. "And very handsome," says Herb.

"We've admired him for so long," says Dorothy, "but we were very scared." Scared of what? "Of saying the wrong thing. But he was very nice." The segment will be aired in the fall.

Herb and Dorothy say they didn't realize they had a "collection" until other people gave it that label. "People started asking to come over, and then articles started appearing. The first article appeared in 1973 in an Italian magazine. Then the Germans started writing about it."

Artists, however, recognized early on that the Vogels were unique.

"I always knew it was an important collection," says Sol LeWitt, a founding father of the minimalist school and now a bright star in the art world. He sold the Vogels one of their first important pieces in 1965 and was a major influence in the development of their collection. "They never had a lot of money to spend, but they were persistent and they were knowledgeable. . . . And they've proved you don't have to have a million dollars to have an important art collection."

The acquisition of the Vogel Collection by the National Gallery of Art now officially confirms what artist Richard Tuttle says he knew from the beginning: "It had the feeling of history being made."

The Vogels, who gave their collection to the National Gallery on a "part-gift, part-purchase" basis, will receive some money. But not much. "It's not going to change our standard of living," says Dorothy. "We won't be able to buy a bigger apartment or buy a car or things like that. But we can maintain the way we've been living."

They chose the National Gallery to receive the collection, says Dorothy, "because we like the idea of giving it to the nation -- and that it is a free institution that does not charge admission. We also like it that they don't sell from their collection."

Remarkable, generous, unique, intuitive, persistent, unassuming, knowledgeable -- Herb and Dorothy Vogel are all of these things. But above all they inspired trust in the artists they met. It was the reason why so many artists have been willing to give Herb and Dorothy a financial break on the art they bought.

"The artists knew we didn't intend to sell," says Dorothy. "And they knew what our intentions were. They trusted us." A slight pause, "And, you know, we did what we said we were going to do."

The object of desire

"It's like falling in love," explains Dorothy Vogel about being drawn to a specific piece of art.

And, indeed, the persistence and ardor shown by Herb and Dorothy Vogel in their selection of artworks does resemble the behavior of a lover in pursuit of the desired object.

Which brings us to the Eternal Question, one that is often asked of lovers but seems to apply equally well to collectors like the Vogels: What do they see in the object of their desire? For instance, what compelled them to buy Richard Tuttle's piece, "Monkey's Recovery for a Darkened Room (Bluebird)."

Dorothy: "To me, it was very, very visual. I fell in love with that piece. It was just such a beautiful piece."

Question: Beautiful in what way? The color? The composition? The materials?

Dorothy: "To me it's very beautiful in the way it's put together. He [the artist] uses a lot of material that he uses in his other artwork. I call it the quintessential Richard Tuttle." Pause. "Would that be the right word? Quintessential?"

Herb: "When I first saw it, I just couldn't get it out of my mind. It looked so extraordinary."

Question: What looked extraordinary to you?

Herb: "It's not always explainable. Which is what art is all about. It just really had it for me. And when Dorothy saw it, she felt the same way."

Dorothy: "I just miss it. We used to have it in the bedroom. And I just miss it so much."