George Rickey

For over five decades, George Rickey dedicated himself to crafting poetic and meticulously calibrated sculptures, which he fondly referred to as his "useless machines." Intended for placement in public spaces, these artworks come alive through their interaction with the surrounding environment, reshaping the landscape and drawing heightened focus to elements of light, motion, and composition. Among all natural forces, it was the movement of the wind that most deeply fascinated Rickey.

Biography of George Rickey

George Warren Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana, Rickey's family relocated to Glasgow, Scotland, in 1913 due to his father's work with Singer Sewing Machine Company. Growing up near the river Clyde, he developed a passion for sailing, navigating the family's 30-foot sailboat around the outer islands.

Educated at Glenalmond College, Rickey later earned a degree in history from Balliol College, Oxford, with occasional attendance at the Ruskin School of Drawing. Despite his father's advice, he pursued art studies in Paris at Académie L'Hote and Académie Moderne while short time traveling before returning to the United States.

After departing Groton, Rickey participated in the Carnegie Corporation Visiting Artists/Artists in Residence program, partially funded by the Works Progress Administration, working at various schools across the country. His main focus during this time was painting. Engaged in these programs, he painted portraits, conducted classes, and crafted a series of murals at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He maintained an art studio in New York from 1934 to 1942 until he was drafted.

Rickey shifted his focus from painting to crafting kinetic sculpture, combining his passion for engineering and mechanics to design sculptures with movable metal parts that responded to even the slightest air currents. His debut sculpture was exhibited in New York in 1951 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art group show American Sculpture 1951. Following this, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired his Two Lines Temporal I, after MOMA's then-director, Alfred Barr, encountered it at the exhibition Documenta III in Kassel, Germany.

Rickey's sculptures are now showcased in major museums across the United States, as well as in most European capitals, Japan, and New Zealand. Although his work is often likened to Alexander Calder's mobiles, Rickey's European heritage aligns more closely with the Constructivist principles of geometric engineering. In 1967, he authored Constructivism – Origins and Evolution, published by George Braziller, Inc., New York.

A significant portion of the artist's portfolio was crafted in his studio in East Chatham, New York, where he settled after assuming a professorship in art (sculpture) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. His kinetic sculpture, titled Two Rectangles, Vertical Gyratory Up, Variation III, became a focal point of the Rensselaer campus in 1972. It now resides in Zurich, Switzerland, at the headquarters of UBS. Initially dubbed the Chrinitoid during its tenure on the Rensselaer campus under a long-term loan agreement, it was relocated after Rickey and Rensselaer failed to reach a consensus on a purchase price.

Rickey also resided and worked in Berlin for an extended period, following his participation in the Documenta III art show. His time in the studio was dedicated to sculptural construction and preparations for exhibitions across Europe. According to Rickey, the city resembled a "cocoon" amidst communist East Germany, boasting a vibrant and sophisticated social and cultural milieu in which he actively engaged. Throughout this period, he was awarded numerous Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees.

In 1979, George Rickey was honored with a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. In 1985, he had a significant retrospective in South Bend, Indiana, his birthplace. His sculptures adorned both the exterior and interior of the South Bend Art Center, as well as the Snite Museum of Art on the University of Notre Dame campus. Rickey himself delivered a presentation of his work at the Snite.

George Rickey passed away at his residence in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on July 17, 2002, at 95. The Rickey Estate is represented by the Kasmin Gallery in New York City, while the Rickey Archive will find a permanent home at Notre Dame.

The Art Style of George Rickey

During his service in the Army Air Corps, George Rickey rediscovered his long-dormant natural aptitude for mechanics. While he had already encountered Calder's exhibition of mobiles in New York in the mid-'30s, it was during the war that his thoughts about a new and distinctive form of art began to evolve. As he familiarized himself with gyroscopes on B-29 gunnery sights, memories from his youth resurfaced, shaping his future as a kinetic sculptor. 

In his war years, during moments of free time in the workshop, Rickey initiated experiments initially inspired by Calder-esque mobiles and later by small "machines." Subsequently, other sculptures were influenced by the movement of flowers, sedges, and the ever-shifting patterns of clouds and stars in the wind.

Shortly thereafter, Rickey immersed himself in exploring motion within sculpture, creating dynamic pieces using basic geometric shapes such as lines, squares, rectangles, and circles, among others, showcasing his remarkable grasp of engineering and mechanics. While his sculptures eagerly interact with the influence of wind currents in their surroundings, the speed of their unpredictable movements is moderated by the simple spacing and fixed arrangement of their elements. Although the relationship among the parts remains constant, the dance they perform is ever-changing. Consequently, these works elegantly oscillate through an infinite array of compositional variations, engaging with all facets of the natural world surrounding them — be it wind, light, rain, fog, or their absence.