Horizontal Column of Five Squares, Excentric II

Information on George Rickey American, 1907–2002 Horizontal Column of Five Squares Excentric II, 1994 Stainless steel, 71 1/2 x 134 in. Museum purchase with the Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts, 1997.63 Subject Matter Five flattened three-dimensional squares of stainless steel glide around one another, dynamically reflecting their surroundings of sky and water. Four of the squares gently move around a fifth central axis square to form a kinetic sculpture. The highly polished surfaces alter any reflections while the flowing motion of the squares is mesmerizing. Weighted and finely balanced, the piece is installed in a reflecting pond and appears to float above it, moved rhythmically by the slightest force of air current or gravity.

Rickey invented the word excentric in the title, a play on the Latin ex centrum, from the center, and the English word eccentric, meaning departing from a recognized or established norm.

About the Artist George Rickey was born on June 6, 1904, in South Bend, Indiana. In 1913, his father was transferred to Scotland and the family moved to Helensburgh, Scotland. As a child and a teenager, Rickey often sailed his family’s cutter down the River Clyde, where he learned to harness the wind, and where he experienced the behavior of the forces that would later animate his sculpture. Rickey also spent time with his grandfather, who was a clockmaker, putting together and taking apart clocks.

While attending Oxford’s Balliol college, Rickey began taking art classes. He attended André Lhote’s academy where he learned Cubism (only to unlearn Cubism later), and the Academié Moderne in Paris. While he learned about numerous artists during his training, Rickey was most influenced by Naum Gabo, László Moholy-Nagy, and the Constructivist movement. (Rickey wrote a book titled Constructivism: Origins and Evolution that is considered the standard history of Constructivism).

In 1930, Rickey returned to the United States and taught at various schools. He maintained a studio in New York from 1934 to 1942. In 1942, he was drafted by the Army Air Corps where he maintained computing instruments for gun-control turrets in B-29 bombers. Besides requiring mechanical skill, this task demanded an understanding of the effects of wind and gravity in ballistics, skills he would rely upon as he switched from painting to kinetic sculpture.

In 1949, Rickey started experimenting with sculpture in a style similar to Alexander Calder’s mobiles, but using glass forms. Interested in the fluidity of movement, Rickey moved on to other designs and materials. He used glass, wire, and various metals for his sculpture, eventually settling on stainless steel as his medium. While teaching at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, Rickey met David Smith. From Smith, he learned welding as a means for sculpting with various metals.

Influence by Smith and Calder, Rickey devised new forms of kinetic sculpture, creating long tapered, vertical stainless-steel blade-like forms, delicately balanced and designed to interact with the wind. He polished the stainless steel with a random all-over pattern made with a rotary grinder. The spears would shift very slowly, but if you saw them move, you found them to be breathtaking. For over half a century, he created one moving form after another. In his late works, Rickey used horizontal box-like forms, making kinetic works sited in a body of water, so that they interacted with wind, water, and sun.

theMcNay

George Rickey Horizontal Column of Five Squares Excentric II, 1994

About the Artist continued To achieve fluid, wavelike motion, Rickey used finely balanced weights and ball bearings in his works. He precisely calculated where to place his weights to achieve the desired effects. The reflective patterns in the water and off the stainless steel surfaces are as mesmerizing as the slow, subtle dance of their movements.

Rickey’s last sculpture, a 57 foot high work, was installed at the Hyogo Museum in Japan in March 2002. Rickey died July 17, 2002, at 95.

Quote from the Artist Since the design of movement is paramount, shape, for me, should have no significance of itself; it merely makes movement evident. Therefore, the simplest, most customary, most unobtrusive forms suffice.

Strategies for Tours Primary Grades (ages 6–8): [Explore the things artists make and the materials they use to make art.] Is this a painting or a sculpture? [Talk about the definition of sculpture.] Describe the shapes and movement. [Introduce the word kinetic. Compare Rickey’s work to Tony Smith’s Asteriskos.] Upper Elementary (ages 9–11): What shapes do you see? What materials were used? How does it move? [Explain that Rickey uses weights and counterbalances so the object moves with the slightest breeze. Rickey uses a mathematical calculation to determine where to place his weights.)] Adolescents & Adults: What is a mobile? What is kinetic? Why do you think Rickey uses stainless steel for his works? [Relate Rickey’s earlier works to Calder. Explain Rickey’s background and his experiments with wind movement. Discuss the words excentric and eccentric.] How does each apply to the sculpture?

Sources Worth Consulting Rickey, George. George Rickey in South Bend. South Bend, Indiana: Art Center of South Bend, St. Mary’s College; Indiana University at South Bend; and Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, 1985. Rickey, George. Skulpturen Material Technik. Berlin: Amerika Haus Berlin Hardenbergsrabe 27 April 27–9 June 1979. Rosenthal, Nan. George Rickey. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1977.

Prepared by Joan Cornell; Rose M. Glennon Date Fall 2000; updated 05/2004 theMcNay