Francesco Clemente, Portrait of Kent Logan and Vicki Logan, 2005. Oil on canvas, Gift from Vicki and Kent Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum.

The Logan Collection

Francesco Clemente, Portrait of Kent Logan and Vicki Logan, 2005. Oil on canvas, Gift from Vicki and Kent Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum.

In 2000, internationally prominent contemporary art collectors Vicki and Kent Logan established a relationship with the Denver Art Museum (though years earlier Vicki Logan worked at the Denver Art Museum). A year later, the Logans gave the single largest donation in the history of the museum’s modern and contemporary art department.

The Logans' generous patronage has had a profound impact on the museum and on Denver’s larger contemporary art community. Completely aligned with the existing direction of the modern and contemporary department, the works reflect the Logans' global perspective and represent some of the most exciting and groundbreaking work that was created in the 1990s and early twenty-first century.

The Logans were among the first Americans to collect work by contemporary Chinese artists and they now own one of the largest collections of such material in the world. As a result of the Logans' generosity, the museum’s collection reflects important cultural issues of our time, including gender, race, ethnicity, and identity.

Kent Logan explains that the works he and his wife have collected and donated “reflected our belief that art is a mirror of our culture, and that the best of it provides insight into issues that face us as individuals and as a society as a whole.” Museum visitors are treated regularly to rotating exhibitions from the Logan Collection in the Vicki and Kent Logan Gallery located on level four of the Hamilton Building.

The Logans' contributions are felt everywhere in the museum. As part of the 2013 exhibition Material World on level four of the Hamilton Building, the Logans' gift of important works by Lin Tianmiao and Oliver Herring went on display for the first time at the DAM, and their gift of two major works by American Indian contemporary artist Jeffrey Gibson were on exhibit in the DAM's American Indian art galleries.

The Logans also generously support other major exhibitions, such as the recent 10-year survey Dana Schutz: If the Face Had Wheels and Sovereign: Independent Voices, which highlighted the work of three leading American Indian contemporary artists Kent Monkman, Rose Simpson, and Virgil Ortiz, who have received international acclaim. Of the works in Sovereign, one installation piece by Kent Monkman and all three sculptures by Rose Simpson were gifted to the DAM, and the Logans generously named 25 artworks by Virgil Ortiz as promised gifts (many of which were on view in the 2015/16 exhibition Revolt 1680-2180: Virgil Ortiz). Also, in 2013 the Logans supported an original performance art piece by Monkman that was then acquired by the DAM.

The Logans have donated and promised hundreds of artworks to the Denver Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. For further insight into the creation and development of the Logan Collection, please refer to Kent Logan's essay The Logan Collection: A Collector's Philosophy (PDF). Lists of artwork gifts, exhibitions illustrated with installations from the Logan Collection, plus additional essays by museum curators, art critics and academics, are available for viewing in the following documents.

The Logan Lecture Series

Additionally, Vicki and Kent Logan continue to support the Logan Lecture Series. Since 2007, this series has brought more than 100 contemporary artists to the museum to discuss their work and engage audiences in stimulating conversation about contemporary art.

Logan Lecture Series History

2007 Lecture Series:

  • Ed Ruscha, January 18
  • Eric Fischl, February 15
  • Betty Woodman, March 15
  • Fang Lijun, April 19
  • Enrique Martinez Celaya, May 17
  • Jennifer Steinkamp, July 19
  • Neo Rauch, September 20
  • George Condo, October 19
  • Matthew Ritchie, November 15
  • Gottfriend Helnwein, December 13

2008 Lecture Series:

  • Katharina Grosse, April 10
  • Shinique Smith, May 1
  • Bjorn Melhus, May 22
  • Jessica Stockholder, June 19
  • Daniel Richter, September 4
  • Candice Breitz, September 18
  • Dasha Shishkin, October 2
  • Matthew Brannon, October 16
  • Jonas Burgert, November 22

2009 Lecture Series:

  • Rachel Lachowitz, February 18
  • Fred Wilson, March 18
  • Wes Hempel, April 15
  • Sandy Skoglund, May 20
  • Beverly Semmes, June 17
  • Richard Patterson, September 16
  • Nicole Eisenman, September 30
  • Kim Dingle, October 21
  • Floyd Tunson, November 18
  • John De Andrea, December 17

2010 Lecture Series:

  • Rick Dula, January 20
  • Tobias Rehberger, February 17
  • Rupprecht Matthies, March 17
  • Nicola Lopez, April 21
  • John McEnroe, May 19
  • Lawrence Weiner, June 23
  • Marc Brandenburg, Sept 15
  • Mark Amerika, October 20
  • Richard Phillips, November 17

2011 Lecture Series:

  • Clare Twomey, January 19
  • Steina Vasulka, February 16
  • Charles Sandison, March 16
  • Alan Rath, April 20
  • Stacey Steers, May 18
  • Neil Forrest, June 8
  • Zhang, October 5
  • Liu Xiaodong, September 21
  • Sui Jianguo, November 16
  • Zhong Biao, December 7

2012 Lecture Series:

  • Martha Daniels, January 18
  • Tucker Nichols, February 22
  • Richard Tuttle, March 21
  • Lawrence Argent, April 18
  • Nick Cave, May 9
  • El Anatsui, September 5
  • Lucas Reiner, October 3
  • Larry Bell, October 24
  • Dana Schutz, November 7
  • Bill Amundson, November 28

2013 Lecture Series:

  • Leonardo Drew, February 27
  • Alfredo Jaar – March 8th
  • Patricia Piccinini, April 10
  • Dinh Q. Lê, May 15
  • Halim al-Karim, September 25
  • Kent Monkman, October 16
  • Lin Tianmiao, October 23
  • Margarita Cabrera, November 13
  • Ernesto Neto, December 11

2014 Lecture Series:

  • Oliver Herring, March 26
  • Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, April 9
  • Brad Kahlhamer, May 21
  • Masami Teraoka, September 3
  • Jack Balas, October 8
  • Bud Shark, October 22
  • Judy Pfaff, November 5

2015 Lecture Series:

  • Yumi Roth, February 13
  • Jim Green, March 11
  • Ben Jackel, April 8
  • Robert Irwin, April 29
  • Virgil Ortiz, May 13
  • Scott Hocking, October 14
  • Trenton Doyle Hancock, October 28
  • Petah Coyne, November 4
  • Beverly Fishman, November 18

2016 Lecture Series:

  • Hung Liu, January 13
  • Leonardo Drew, February 1
  • Mickalene Thomas, March 9
  • Jovan Villalba, April 13
  • Carroll Dunham, May 17

2017 Lecture Series:

  • John Jota Leanos, January 11
  • Melanie Smith, January 25
  • Mi Tierra, Here and There, April 19
  • Ana Teresa Fernández, May 3rd
  • Intersection of Art/Design/Fashion, May 24
  • Coco Fusco, September 15
  • Enrique Martínez Celaya, September 27
  • Chido Johnson, November 1
  • Xie Xiaoze, November 29

2018 Lecture Series:

  • Shantell Martin, January 17
  • Devon Dikeou, April 4
  • Phillip K. Smith, III, May 15
  • Matthew Barney, May 24
  • Julie Buffalohead, September 26
  • Erika Harrsch, October 3
  • Shimabuku, October 24

2019 Lecture Series:

  • Jordan Casteel, January 23
  • Tenzing Rigdol, February 28
  • Simphiwe Ndzube, March 14
  • Fred Wilson, April 30
  • Jonathan Saiz, September 11
  • Suchitra Mattai, October 7
  • Anthony McCall, November 21

2020 Virtual Lecture Series:

  • Senga Nengudi, April 22
  • We Have Always Had a Voice featuring Fred Wilson, Raul de Nieves, and Andrea Carlson, and moderated by Assistant Curator, Native Arts, Dakota Hoska, August 22
  • Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena, November 17

2021 Virtual Lecture Series:

  • What Makes Mexican Modernism Relevant Today? featuring Damián Ortega, Pablo Helguera, and Alma Lopez, January 19
  • Migration, Diaspora, and Displacement: A Conversation with artists Shirin Neshat, Hew Locke, and Suchitra Mattai, moderated by Saloni Mathur, PhD, May 18

2022 Lecture Series:

  • Stacey Steers, March 8
  • Ben Jackel, April 19
  • Jude Tallichet, May 10
  • Caleb Hahne Quintana, December 6

2023 Lecture Series:

  • Cara Romero, March 28
  • Niki Hastings-McFall, July 25
  • Magdalena Fernández, August 17
  • Diana Thater, October 17
  • vanessa german, December 12

2024 Lecture Series:

  • Dyani White Hawk, February 27
  • Sandra Monterroso, March 26
  • Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, April 6
  • Alyson Shotz, April 9
  • Chitra Ganesh, June 4