Robert Vickrey: Artist At Work

Robert Vickrey (1926-2011) was a crucial figure in the mid-twentieth-century renaissance of egg tempera, a demanding technique he explored over six decades. After studying with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh at the Art Students League, Vickrey went on to Yale, where he learned egg tempera from Lewis E. York. The rediscovery of Cennino d'Andrea Cennini's Il Libro dell'Arte (c. 1390-1410) was highly influential. The Brandywine River Museum's 2002 exhibition Milk and Eggs: The American Revival of Tempera Painting, 1930-1950 chronicled the experiments of the era. Vickrey wrote his own manuals on the subject: New Techniques in Egg Tempera (1973), which author Eliasoph calls an instant classic in the field of technical art books, and Robert Vickrey: Artist at Work (1979). Eliasoph quotes Vickrey on reinvigorating the old medium: There are many ways to use egg tempera, not just one. And with a lot of practice and some imagination, you should be able to come up with techniques I've never thought of.