1. George Warren Rickey was an American kinetic sculptor known for geometric abstractions, often large-scale, engineered to move in response to air currents.
18 Facts About George Rickey
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When George Rickey was still a child, his father, an engineer with Singer Sewing Machine Company, moved the family to Glasgow, Scotland, in 1913.
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Additionally, the Rickeys lived near the river Clyde, and George learned to sail around the outer islands on the family's 30 feet sailboat.
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George 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.
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George Rickey spent a short time traveling Europe and, against the advice of his father, studied art in Paris at Academie L'Hote and Academie Moderne.
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George Rickey 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.
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George Rickey's focus was primarily on painting and he began to reject European modernism in favor of American social realism.
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George Rickey recruited student assistants to help with the murals.
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George Rickey taught art at variety of colleges, including Muhlenberg College.
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George Rickey combined his love of engineering and mechanics by designing sculptures whose metal parts moved in response to the slightest air currents.
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George Rickey's 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.
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George Rickey's kinetic sculpture titled Two Rectangles, Vertical Gyratory Up, Variation III was a central element of the Rensselaer campus from 1972.
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George Rickey lived and worked in Berlin for many years, following the Documenta III art show.
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In 1985, George Rickey had a major retrospective in South Bend, Indiana, the place of his birth.
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George Rickey's sculptures were installed outside of the South Bend Art Center, and at the Snite Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
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George Rickey gave a presentation of his work at the Snite.
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George Rickey died at his home in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on July 17,2002, at the age of 95.
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The George Rickey Estate is currently represented by Kasmin Gallery in New York City.