J. D. SALINGER by Robert Vickrey, tempera on board, 1961, Sight: 43.8 x 29.8cm (17 1/4 x 11 3/4"), Frame: 66.4 x 49.2 x 4.8cm (26 1/8 x 19 3/8 x 1 7/8"), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine. © Robert Vickrey/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY NPG.78.TC723.

Vickrey portrait of J.D. Salinger on view at Smithsonian

/in /by
J. D. SALINGER by Robert Vickrey, tempera on board, 1961, Sight: 43.8 x 29.8cm (17 1/4 x 11 3/4"), Frame: 66.4 x 49.2 x 4.8cm (26 1/8 x 19 3/8 x 1 7/8"), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine. © Robert Vickrey/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY NPG.78.TC723.

J. D. SALINGER by Robert Vickrey, tempera on board, 1961, Sight: 43.8 x 29.8cm (17 1/4 x 11 3/4"), Frame: 66.4 x 49.2 x 4.8cm (26 1/8 x 19 3/8 x 1 7/8"), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine. © Robert Vickrey/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY NPG.78.TC723.

WASHINGTON – On Feb. 1, 2010, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery installed a Robert Vickrey portrait of American author J.D. Salinger. The intensely reclusive writer died at his New Hampshire home on Jan. 27 at the age of 91.

The portrait of Salinger is displayed in a first-floor gallery designated for the remembrance of recently deceased individuals represented in artworks held in the museum’s collection.

Salinger had one of the great successes of all time with his 1951 novel of teenage angst, The Catcher in the Rye. In the Smithsonian’s portrait, the author is painted against a metaphorical amber wave of grain. The image appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1961.

#   #   #

 

More on Auction Central News
The Ferry Boat, from the Alfred Stieglitz New York exhibition at the Seaport Museum that runs through Jan. 10, 2011. Image by permission of the Seaport Museum New York, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
NYC exhibit captures photographer Stieglitz’s vision of the city
View of Claverton Manor, home of The American Museum in Britain, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2011 from 12 March to 30 October. Image courtesy The American Museum in Britain.
London Eye: December 2010
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, an original illustration by John Burningham for Ian Fleming's eponymous 1971 children's book. On exhibition at the Fleming Collection in London from 13 September until 22 December. Image courtesy of the Fleming Collection.
London Eye: August 2011
A signed Irving Penn poster of his 1950 photograph 'Harlequin Dress.' Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Joerg Weigelt Auktionen.
Smithsonian acquires 100 Irving Penn photographs
Lt. Daniel J. Kern and German conservator Karl Sieber examining Jan van Eyck’s 'Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,' also known as the Ghent Altarpiece (1432). Thomas Carr Howe papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Photo courtesy of Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Smithsonian exhibition salutes WWII Monuments Men