Robert Remsen Vickrey (August 26, 1926 – April 17, 2011) was a

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-based artist and author who specialized in the ancient medium of

egg tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

. His paintings are surreal dreamlike visions of sunset shadows of bicycles, nuns in front of mural-painted brick walls, and children playing.

Early life

Vickrey was born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

on August 26, 1926. He was the son of Claude Claire Vickrey and Caroline Remsen McKim (1903–1936), the granddaughter of Robert George Remsen through whom he was descended from many of New York's oldest families. Vickrey's father, while at his graduating ball from the

U.S. Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy is ...

, courted

Wallis Warfield Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a ...

(who was better known later in life as the

Duchess of Windsor Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a ...

). His parents later divorced and his mother remarried to Caleb van Heusen Whitbeck III, in 1929, with whom she had another son, Caleb Whitbeck. Vickrey graduated from the

Pomfret School Pomfret School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory boarding and day school in Pomfret, Connecticut, United States, serving 350 students in grades 9 through 12 and post-graduates. Located in the Pomfret Street Historic District, ...

, then studied at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

before receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

in 1947, followed by a year in New York studying with Reginald Marsh and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League. He returned to the Yale School of Fine Arts, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1950.

Career

He was one of the illustrators of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' covers during the period from 1942 to 1966, which has been called the golden age of ''Time'' covers. His portrait of J.D. Salinger, from a 1961 ''Time'' cover, was hung at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

following the writers death in 2010. Other cover artists during this period included

Boris Artzybasheff Boris Mikhailovich Artzybasheff (russian: , 25 May 1899, Kharkiv, Russian Empire – 16 July 1965) was a Ukrainian illustrator active in the United States, notable for his strongly worked and often surreal designs. Life and career Artzybasheff w ...

, James Ormsbee Chapin, Bernard Safran and

Boris Chaliapin Boris Chaliapin (Russian: Борис Фёдорович Шаля́пин; September 22, 1904 – May 18, 1979) was an artist for ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine, for which he illustrated more than 400 covers, from 1942 (Jawaharlal Nehru) to Ric ...

. His work with tempera has aligned him with fellow tempera artists

Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...

Jared French Jared French (February 4, 1905 – January 8, 1988) was an American painter who specialized in the medium of egg tempera. He was one of the artists attributed to the style of art known as magic realism along with contemporaries George Tooker a ...

and

Paul Cadmus Paul Cadmus (December 17, 1904 – December 12, 1999) was an American artist widely known for his egg tempera paintings of gritty social interactions in urban settings. He also produced many highly finished drawings of single nude male figures ...

, who also "attempted to combine Surrealism with Realism, the amalgam being termed Magic Realism." In 1960, he exhibited his paintings at the Midtown Galleries at 17 East 57th Street. In 1982, a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Museum of Art, Science and Industry in

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequo ...

. In the 1970s, he wrote two books: ''New Techniques in Egg Tempera'' (1973), with Diane Cochrane, and ''Robert Vickrey: Artist at Work'' (1979).

Legacy and honors

His works are in the collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Cro ...

in New York, the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Desig ...

, and The Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro. Vickrey received the

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among leading Victorian poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innova ...

Award for Excellence in the Arts from

Fairfield University Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time a ...

and the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts in March 2009, where a retrospective exhibition of Vickrey's paintings from 1951-2007 was held at the Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery. The award and exhibition coincided with the publication of "Robert Vickrey: The Magic of Realism," written by Dr. Philip Eliasoph, a Fairfield University professor of art history.Fairfield University recognizes artist Robert Vickrey's lifelong contribution in art with The Gerard Manley Hopkins Award
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Personal life

Vickrey was married to Marjorie, with whom he had two son and two daughters, Scott Vickrey, Elizabeth Nicole (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Vickrey) McMartin, Wendy Caroline Vickrey, and Sean Vickrey. After Marjorie's death in 1997, he remarried to Beverly Bowen Rumage. Vickrey died at his home in

Naples, Florida Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the historical city (i.e. in the immediate vicinity of downtown Naples) was 19,115. Naples is a principal city of the Naples-Marco Island, Flori ...

on April 17, 2011 at the age of 84.

Gallery

File:Music-TIME-1957.jpg, Vickrey's 1957 ''Time'' cover. File:J-D-Salinger-TIME-1961.jpg, Vickrey's 1961 ''

'' cover of J.D. Salinger.

References