Modernist
ROBERT VICKREY (1926–2011)
Nun Walking a Brick Road, about 1964
Egg tempera on Masonite, 15 7/8 x 21 7/8 in.
Signed (at lower right): R. Vickrey
EX COLL.: [Midtown Galleries, New York]; private collection; private collection, Los Angeles, California, and by descent
Vickrey’s high level of craftsmanship, his skillful manipulation of space, and most importantly, his concern for translating aspects of the human condition into paint are apparent in Nun Walking a Brick Road. To be sure, despite his secular outlook and Protestant background, Vickrey made the nuns associated with the Daughters of Charity of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (1581–1660) one of the central themes of his art. Initially, his interest in painting nuns was purely compositional: as Vickrey related in 2006, “I started painting them forty years ago because I was interested in the abstract shapes of cornettes” (Robert Vickrey, “Artists’ Statement,” in Robert Vickrey at 80: A Retrospective from Naples’ Area Collections, exhib. cat. [Naples, Florida: The Von Liebig Art Center, 2006], n.p.). However, as time passed and aspects of society and the environment became increasingly complex, uncertain, and sometimes ominous, Vickrey’s feelings about nuns took on deeper meaning: as he explained it, “I realized that these figures were becoming a symbol of something that was too beautiful and fragile to exist in our modern world” (ibid).
Vickrey’s concern for the vulnerability of nuns and the role of spirituality amidst the turmoil of contemporary life is readily apparent in the Hirschl & Adler example, which features a sister of the church making her way along a deserted thoroughfare, her stiff white headdress and blue tunic standing out against the crisply defined streetscape that dominates the image. Depicted from a cinematic high vantage point that eliminates the background or sky, her petite form casts a long shadow across the street, wherein diagonal stretches of plain pavement alternate with sections composed of interlocking linear bands of stone and V-shaped herringbone blocks that imbue the scene with intricate patterning.
Vickrey’s nuns are never engaged in prayer or charitable work. Rather, as evident in ithey are conceived as silent, anonymous figures that evoke what has been called a “purifying presence” with universal appeal. Is she a fragile, isolated soul, her beliefs and manners threatened by the vagaries of her time and place? Or is her placement within this disorienting maze of sunlit pavement emblematic of her cloistered lifestyle? Ultimately, the meaning of this captivating work is unclear and purposely so.
