| George Rickey | ||
| Birth Date: June 6, 1907 |
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| Death Date: July 17, 2002 Artist Gallery |
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| Creator of kinetic sculpture, George Rickey was born in 1907 in South Bend, Indiana. His family moved to Scotland in 1913 and did not return to the United States until 1930.
The following paragraphs are by Rickey about his work: “After twenty years of painting, on my very first day as a sculptor, I worked with movement. Though I was already over forty, the professional problems of a sculptor confronted me for the first time: workspace and tools, techniques of construction, transport, among others. People thought Calder had said it all; when I found he had not, I had to choose among the many doors I then found open. I had to learn to be a mechanic and recall the physics I had learned at sixteen. I also had to decide on certain doors to close. I denied myself, except for a few lapses, color, optical effects, stripes…I gave up plastic, rubber and foam. I embarked on an art of motion in which every object had to be preconceived. Yet, in spite of the preconception, I wanted motion to be unpredictable. So I rejected motors; only air currents could provide the energy.
I used gravity, momentum, inertia, moments of rotations, acceleration, and the laws governing movement as my new box of colors. Though the principles were simple, their possibilities were infinite. I am, in general, a non-objective artist. I have often been asked whether I was in fact interpreting clouds, seas, and the movement of plants in the wind. The answer is no. Though I love Nature, I am not trying to interpret it or to remind you of it”.
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