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May 1, 2012, Volume 58, No. 32

VogelProfessor Vogel, Annenberg School

Amos Vogel, professor emeritus in the Annenberg School for Communication, passed away April 24 in New York City; he was 91.

Professor Vogel had a significant impact on the film industry. He is noted for transforming the New York film culture in the 1940s. In 1947 he opened Cinema 16, an art film house in New York that exposed a new generation to international fare. Marking its 50th anniversary, he also co-founded the New York Film Festival, which he ran until 1968. He was also a film consultant and program director of the National Public Television Conference in 1973.

That same year, he came to Penn as the director of film at the Annenberg Center. Professor Vogel was appointed professor in 1976 and taught various film studies courses. He became emeritus in 1991.

“By the time Amos Vogel joined the Annenberg faculty he had already transformed the worldview of film as an art form,” said Dr. Robert Able, Gr’84, who was a teaching assistant with Professor Vogel and is the owner of Modern Gallery in Philadelphia. “At the Annenberg School, Amos became a major contributor to the cutting-edge scholarly investigation of visual communication. He trained a whole generation of students to understand the formal aspects of ‘film language’ and screened hundreds of important, but neglected films at his Annenberg Cinematheque. Above all, Amos was a kind, compassionate and generous man whose life and work were transformative for all those who surrounded him.”

Professor Vogel authored of Film as a Subversive Art and the children’s book, How Little Lori Visited Times Square, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Born in Vienna, Austria, Professor Vogel escaped the Nazis and immigrated to America. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the New School of Social Research in New York City in 1949.

Professor Vogel is survived by his sons, Loring and Steven; and four grandchildren. His wife, Marcia, died in 2009.

Almanac - May 1, 2012, Volume 58, No. 32