George Rickey (1907-2002) was an American artist, best known for his large-scale moving sculptures. Many of his artworks were designed to be seen outside: large geometric forms, made of shiny stainless steel that reflect their changing surroundings, and naturally powered by breezes. His innovative sculptures are a unique combination of dynamic art and engineering precision.

Rickey’s father was a mechanical engineer and his grandfather was a clockmaker, and they both encouraged his childhood interest in engineering and design. Rickey studied painting and drawing at school, both in the United States and in Europe; then he learned about mechanics and the effects of wind and gravity during his time in the Army Air Corps. Using these skills, he became an art teacher and an increasingly well-known artist, working mainly in the United States and exhibiting all over the world.

“Together, we assembled it, and I learnt the principles of the crank, valves and pistons then. As a boy, my clear purpose was to be an engineer.”

As his international artistic career developed, George Rickey was a regular participant in the Documenta exhibitions of contemporary art, held every five years in Kassel, Germany. He exhibited there in the 1960s and in 1968 opened a second studio in Berlin, forming close relationships with the local art community. Consequently, the then-Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie commissioned what has become one of Rickey’s most famous outdoor moving sculptures, Four Squares in a Square (1969-1970), designed specifically for the plaza of Mies van der Rohe’s iconic museum building. Over fifty works by Rickey are in public German art collections.

“I’m convinced that, in the end, art is not for the artist but for their fellow man.”

“Though I do not imitate nature, I am aware of resemblances. If my sculptures sometimes look like plants, or clouds, or the waves of the sea, it is because they respond to the same laws of motion and follow the same mechanical principles.”

Sculpture is a form of art that is three dimensional, meaning it has height, width, and depth. George made large-sized sculptures to be placed in the landscape outdoors. Sculptures can be made of stone, wood, metal, clay, or any other materials. George chose to use stainless steel, a smooth metal that shows reflections.
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George also chose to make his sculptures kinetic, meaning they move. Geometric parts shaped like squares, triangles, circles, lines, and zig zags rotate at different speeds depending on the wind. He used movement that ranged from back and forth (called “harmonic motion”) to circular paths (called “gyrating”).