Robert Vickrey

Robert Vickrey studied at Wesleyan University, Yale University and Pomfret School. Work by Robert Vickrey is recorded in the collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

• Birth Name — Robert Remsen Vickrey • Born — 26 August 1926 • Birthplace — New York City, New York, U.S. • Died — 17 April 2011 • Place of death — Naples, Florida, U.S. • Education — * Wesleyan University • Yale University • Art Students League • Known for — Tempera painting • Training — * Reginald Marsh • Kenneth Hayes Miller • Movement — Surrealism • Notable Works — Admiral Benbow, Early Snow • Website — robertvickrey.com

Vickrey was born in Manhattan 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, courted Wallis Warfield (who was better known later in life as the Duchess of Windsor). 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, then studied at Wesleyan University before receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University 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.

He was one of the illustrators of Time 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 following the writer's death in 2010. Other cover artists during this period included Boris Artzybasheff, James Ormsbee Chapin, Bernard Safran and Boris Chaliapin. His work with tempera has aligned him with fellow tempera artists Andrew Wyeth, Jared French and Paul Cadmus, 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. In the 1970s, he wrote two books: New Techniques in Egg Tempera (1973), with Diane Cochrane, and Robert Vickrey: Artist at Work (1979).

Vickrey was married to Marjorie, with whom he had two son and two daughters, Scott Vickrey, Elizabeth Nicole (née Vickrey) McMartin, Wendy Caroline Vickrey, and Sean Vickrey. After Marjorie's death in 1997, he married Beverly Bowen Rumage. Vickrey died at his home in Naples, Florida, on April 17, 2011, at the age of 84.

• Illustration — Vickrey's 1957 Time cover. • Illustration — Vickrey's 1961 Time cover of J.D. Salinger.