George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor known for geometric abstractions, often large-scale, engineered to move in response to air currents.
Early life and education
Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana.[1] When Rickey was still a child, his father, an engineer with Singer Sewing Machine Company, moved the family to Glasgow, Scotland, in 1913.[1]
Growing up with a father who was an engineer and a grandfather who was a clockmaker instilled in the young Rickey an interest in mechanical systems and anything needing winding or cranking, from the family car to the phonograph.[2] Additionally, the Rickeys lived near the river Clyde, and George learned to sail around the outer islands on the family's 30 feet (9.1 m) sailboat. As did his youthful interest in engineering, Rickey’s familiarity with boat movements from an early age would inform the signature kinectic sculpture he began developing in the 1950s.[3]
Rickey was educated at Glenalmond College and received a degree in history from Balliol College, Oxford, with frequent visits to the Ruskin School of Drawing. He spent a short time traveling Europe and, against the advice of his father, studied art in Paris at Académie L'Hote and Académie Moderne. He then returned to the United States and began teaching at the Groton School, where among his many students was future National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy.[citation needed]
After leaving Groton, Rickey taught at various schools throughout the country as part of the Carnegie Corporation Visiting Artists/Artists in Residence program (partially funded by the Works Progress Administration). His focus was primarily on painting and he began to reject European modernism in favor of American social realism.[4] While taking part in these programs, he painted portraits, taught classes, and created a set of murals at Olivet College and Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. He recruited student assistants to help with the murals.[5] Meanwhile, he maintained an art studio in New York[clarification needed] from 1934 to 1942, when he was drafted.
Rickey turned from painting to creating kinetic sculpture. Rickey combined his love of engineering and mechanics by designing sculptures whose metal parts moved in response to the slightest air currents.
Rickey's sculptures can now be seen in major museums in the US and in most European capitals, Japan, and New Zealand. His work is often compared to the mobiles of Alexander Calder, but while Calder used organic, playful forms, Rickey's European lineage is more closely related to the Constructivist principles of geometric engineering. In 1967, he wrote Constructivism – origins and evolution, published by George Braziller, Inc., New York.[citation needed]
In works such as Two Open Triangles Up Gyratory, Rickey's two wind driven elements (engineered to withstand winds of 80 miles per hour (130 km/h)) provide an endless series of combined, almost dance like, shapes and movements.
Rickey mastered not only ordered predictable movements, but also mastered methods of controlling both the speed and tempo of similar objects to respond more randomly, such as in his work Four Open Rectangles Diagonal Jointed Gyratory V.[7]
Much of his work was created in his studio in East Chatham, New York, where he moved after taking a position as a professor of art (sculpture) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. His kinetic sculpture titled Two Rectangles, Vertical Gyratory Up, Variation III was a central element of the Rensselaer campus from 1972. It is now located in Zurich, Switzerland, at the headquarters of UBS.[8] This sculpture was known as the Chrinitoid when it was located on the Rensselaer campus on long term loan. It was removed after Rickey and Rensselaer could not agree on a purchase price.[9]
Rickey also lived and worked in Berlin for many years, following the Documenta III art show. His studio time was spent constructing sculpture and preparing for exhibitions in Europe. In Rickey's words the city was like a "cocoon" in the middle of communist East Germany, with a lively and advanced social and cultural life which he partook in fully. During this time he received numerous Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees.[citation needed]
In 1985, George Rickey had a major retrospective in South Bend, Indiana, the place of his birth. His sculptures were installed outside (and inside) of the South Bend Art Center, and also at the Snite Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. Rickey gave a presentation of his work at the Snite. One of the stories he told concerned how, as a result of a World War II-era, government-administered aptitude test, he was assigned to design machine gun turrets for bombers. It was in this job that he became familiar with the high-quality ball bearings, balancing weights, riveted sheet metal, lightweight aircraft construction techniques, and modern hardware (and the vendors for same) that were to become the mechanical foundation for his later forays into lightweight, delicately balanced, wind-activated kinetic sculpture.[citation needed]
Rickey died at his home in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on July 17, 2002, at the age of 95. The Rickey Estate is currently represented by Kasmin Gallery in New York City.[14] The Rickey archive will have a permanent home at Notre Dame.[15]
Gallery
Vier Vierecke im Geviert (Four squares in the Geviert), 1969, Stahl, Berlin
Conversation, 1999, Ludwigshafen, Germany
Drei rotierende Quadrate (Three rotary squares), Münster, Germany
