Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov 8x10 oil

In my early twenties, I read voraciously, and Vladimir Nabokov was one of my favorite writers during that period, along with Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and on and on.  I recall being stunned by his command of the language, especially since he was born in Russia and English was a second or third language for him.  He is best known for Lolita, though it branded him as something of a pedophile to the population at large, and the body of his work is quite different from that one novel.  Pnin, King Queen Knave, Pale Fire are other novels among the many he wrote over his 78 years.  If Wikipedia is to believed, he spent some time in Ashland, Oregon in 1953 (my old haunt) finishing Lolita and collecting butterflies in the countryside.  

He taught at a number of prestigious American universities, including Cornell, where Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a student and credited him with the development of her writing style.  He was a noted lepidopterist and was the curator of the Harvard butterfly collection at one time.  

Sketchbook portrait oil 8 x 10