Robert Remsen Vickrey N.A., (1926-2011). Robert Vickrey was born in New York City. Educated at Yale (B.A., B. F.A.,) and at the Art Students League of New York, he trained under Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh. In a career that spanned more than half of a century, he continuously challenged conventions, and developed a unique iconography that joined psychological narratives with spellbinding imagery. Vickrey’s singular artistic vision allowed him to make an indelible mark on the development of American realism for this century.
“I only took the last two years of the five year program at the Yale School of Art. I’m the only one that was ever allowed to do it. They looked at my work and saw that I had already accomplished in my work what the other students had taken three years to accomplish. So I completed the last two years, which meant that they gave me a booth and I sat and painted all day. Every so often my teacher would walk by and say ‘Mmm hmmm, keep it up’ I think he did not want to influence me which was very nice.”
Shortly after leaving art school, Vickrey created the first of what has become one of his most recognizable series, centered on the unusual shape of a nun’s cornet. In 1952, he completed the painting Labyrinth, in which he depicts a nun lost in a maze of distorting mirrors and decaying movie posters. The painting was submitted to the Whitney Museum’s annual juried competition and later purchased as part of its permanent collection.
Vickrey was attracted to the abstract shapes of the nuns’ hats, and the way light and shadow manifested themselves in and around their angles. He also suggested that they were a symbol of something too fragile to exist in this world. The notion of fragile beauty amidst life’s myriad mysteries and dangers is a theme which Vickrey has continued to explore, in this and other symbology, throughout his career.
In images that have an immediate aesthetic appeal, Vickrey applied ambiguous narrative connotations for his viewers to interpret, if they choose. Butterflies, bubbles, balloons, angels and children personify innocence, lightness, and wonder. Mazes, brick walls, and shadows provide a darker, antithetical context.
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