George Rickey
(b. 1907 South Bend, IN; d. 2002 Saint Paul, MN)
Column of Four Squares Excentric Gyratory III
1990
Stainless steel
Collection of OZ Art NWA

The son of an engineer and the grandson of a clockmaker, George Rickey served as an engineer in the army in World War II before devoting himself to sculpture. His love of tinkering and technical expertise show in kinetic sculptures like this one. While his previous moving sculptures were composed of individual lines, beginning in the 1970s Rickey began to use squares rotating around a central stem.

The squares in this sculpture each have their own internal pendulum structure, allowing them to move and sway individually according to the slightest breeze. Though the sculpture may appear mechanical in its shiny metal surface and angular profile, it is also responsive to changes in light and air that occur in the natural world.

(revised by Carlyn Wilder, 2024)