George Rickey

The kinetic sculpture of George Warren Rickey is based on simple geometric forms and the action of the wind: the random movement of its elements is modulated by their spacing and fixed arrangement, while the works also respond to light, rain and fog. A first sculpture activated by air currents is presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1951. Born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1907 and deceased in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 2002, Rickey thus brings together ordered forms and natural forces in his work.

After studying at Glenalmond College, Balliol College, Oxford, and the Académie André Lhote in Paris, he studies painting in the French capital before returning to the United States in 1930. During the Second World War, he is assigned to the design of machine-gun turrets for bombers; this work rekindles his interest in mechanics and aerodynamics. He teaches for several years at the School of Architecture of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Before settling in East Chatham, New York State, in 1960, he lives and teaches in Bloomington, New Orleans, New York and the Midwest. He produces much of his work there, while also maintaining studios in Berlin and Santa Barbara.

The titles of his works attest to the place of lines, planes and forms in his vocabulary: Atropos II (1962), Two Planes Vertical Horizontal IV (1974), Two Open Trapezoids Excentric III (1977) and Column of Five Lines with Gimbal II (1990) are some examples. A retrospective is devoted to him at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1979. In 1985, another retrospective is presented in South Bend, with sculptures installed at the South Bend Art Center and the Snite Museum of Art at Notre Dame. In New York, the exhibition George Rickey: Monumental Sculptures on Park Avenue presents his monumental sculptures in 2021. According to Kasmin Gallery, his works are included in the permanent collections of more than 150 museums. The institutions cited include the Kunstmuseum Bern, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Works recorded at auction

Germann

Shade Dapple, 1951

Pen drawing

Original catalogue wording

Shade Dapple, 1951
Feder-Zeichnung.

Date to be documented

Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed

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