George Rickey: Selected Works from the Estate 1954-2000

GEORGE RICKEY

GEORGE RICKEY Selected Works from the Estate 1954 - 2000 FEBRUARY 4 - MARCH 5, 2016

GEORGE RICKEY Selected Works from the Estate 1954 - 2000

40 WEST 57 T H ST REET N E W YO R K , N E W YO R K 1 0 0 1 9 212-541-4900

FEBRUARY 4 - MARCH 5, 2016

M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M 2016

4 0 W E S T 5 7 T H S T R E E T | N E W YO R K | 1 0 0 1 9 2 1 2 - 5 4 1 - 4 9 0 0 | M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M

GEORGE RICKEY

GEORGE RICKEY S E L E C T E D WO R KS F R O M T H E E STAT E 1954 - 2000

FEBRUARY 4 - MARCH 5, 2016

4 0 W E S T 5 7 T H S T R E E T | N E W YO R K | 1 0 0 1 9 2 1 2 - 5 4 1 - 4 9 0 0 | M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M

The artist c. 1965, fabricating Crucifera IV at his studio in East Chatham, NY. Photo by Carl Howard.

George Rickey’s essay The Métier was first published in The Art Digest’s 1965 edition of Contemporary Sculpture: Arts Yearbook, and is as fresh and informative today as it was fifty-one years ago. The Métier was selected for this catalog because it addresses first-hand so many of the vital art issues of Rickey’s time, most of which have carried forward to the present.

This exhibition consists in large part of twenty-seven unique works held by the artist in his personal archive, principally comprised of sculptures that he wanted to reflect upon during his daily routines at home and in his studio. George Rickey fit the classic description of a polymath: he was an accomplished painter, sculptor, essayist, fabricator, inventor, engineer… the list goes on. The works here in large part represent the full range of Rickey’s oeuvre; we offer The Métier as an opportunity to spend a thoughtful moment with the artist.

Dale Lanzone Exhibition Curator

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The Métier by George Rickey, 1965 Momentary trends may be rigged, but the long flow of the Tradition is established by the artists, who also declare what it is through their choice of what they admire, of what nourishes them, of what influences them. This acceptance and confirmation is then passed on in their work.

Michelangelo’s drawings after Giotto in the Bardi Chapel in Florence are an assessment and recommendation spanning two centuries of the Tradition. In criticism, the artists themselves are the authority – Raphael on Michelangelo, Ingres on Raphael, Delacroix on Géricault and Rubens, Picasso on El Greco and Velázquez, Europeans on Pollock, Americans on Gonzalez. Rauschenberg wins his laurels not in Venice nor in the Press nor on collectors’ walls; he wins them in a long time hence when some painter yet unborn thinks of him as he paints.

As for myself, I don’t know whether I am in or out of step— either would be dangerous—or with what. I have plenty to occupy me without that worry. My concern with “movement itself ”—Gabo’s phrase—leads me into ever deeper, if narrower, water, I will never explore the whole gamut of it—the possibilities are too wide. I am less and less interested in exploration. I don’t want to show, in my work, what can be done; I do that in my teaching. I want to make simple declaratory statements in a visual language I can control.

I was a long time getting over youth, misgivings, inexperience.

I was a painter for twenty years. I have been a teacher for thirty-five. In 1930 I was a Cubist. In 1950, aged forty-three, I had become a sculptor, non-objective, and was soon committed to movement as a means.

I had had three temptations to apostasy—when I was briefly on the editorial staff of Newsweek in the thirties, when my father’s firm offered me a job as I came out of the Air Corps in 1945, and when I had been chairman of a university art department for a time. All three were resisted with relative ease, though common sense argued the other side. One becomes an artist against prudence; one needs, in addition to talent and energy, a lot of luck.

I have been lucky. First in a couple of my teachers—George Lyward, who showed me the function of language; the power of imagination, precision and understatement; the nature of excellence; and what extraordinary results could come from persistence beyond ordinary fatigue. At sixteen I had to write an essay for him on “Order is heaven’s first law.” I was treated with undeserved kindness and tolerance by my history tutor in Oxford, Humphrey Sumner, later Warden of All Souls College, who introduced me to the just-formed Museum of Modern Art in the Hecksher Building in New York in 1930. He knew so much more about modern art than I, the would-be artist.

At that time I had learned something of academic drawing at the Ruskin School in Oxford and then had too orthodox a Cubist lesson from the books of Clive Bell and Roger Fry, and from my articulate and witty master, André Lhote. At the Académie Moderne I had been baffled by Léger and charmed by Ozenfant.

Much later I was tempted toward art history by Richard Offner and, already forty, was shaken up by Lasansky in Iowa and

then disappointed by the Institute of Design, except for the luminous presence of Buckminster Fuller, an artistic Parsifal outside of art. I too wanted to make art outside of art and had thought the ideas of the Bauhaus would help me. But they had become too academic in Chicago. David Smith gave me my first and only welding lesson and the sound advice to be extravagant with materials. Gabo never taught me, but I have learned much from his Realist Manifesto of 1920 and from his work, in which I saw a lucid, sensitive poetry of space in form.

I have learned from teaching and from certain students.

Some of my colleagues would like me to reject the Tradition, like the Chinese emperor who wanted history to start with himself. I have fed on the masters—all the great names you would expect plus nameless hands in ancient, medieval and primitive art. None of the art history I have learned is wasted, though the pedagogy was often disastrous. I use it every day. It is not “the new” in a work that shows the artist, but what is outside such competition. Nor is it what he has borrowed from a master—rather what he shares with him.

We seek an artist’s identity, whether we are Berenson in Florence or a visitor to the Biennale. An artist seeks his own; in finding it he reveals what he has in common with Giotto or Hokusai, not how he differs. If you’re yourself, you’re unique enough; nobody has ever been you before. The finest accolade to hear from a master is, “You are one of us.” I should be happy to make an art as dull as Poussin, as conventional as Duccio, as neutral as Maillol, and as mechanical as a flying buttress of Chartres or the pavement of the Campidoglio, if I can do it in my own, old way.

I have worked for several years with the simple movement of straight lines, as they cut each other, slice the intervening space and divide time, responding to the gentlest air currents. I work also with large complexes of small forms—perhaps a stack of waving lines, or revolving squares in groups too numerous to count, or pivoting eccentric rotors bearing hundreds of light-reflecting strips. Such countless elements together compose simple, monolithic, seething forms, either volumes or surfaces, which oscillate or undulate slowly in a breeze.

My technology is borrowed from crafts and industry. It has more in common with clocks than with sculpture. The materials are simple: stainless-steel sheet, rods, bars, angles, pipe; silicon bronze, brass, very occasionally a little silver; lead for the counterweights. I join by silver brazing, acetylene and heliarc welding, spot-welding, occasionally riveting or bolting. The tools are shear, sheet-metal bending brake, drill press, band saw, cut-off wheel, bench grinder, disk grinder, vise; pliers hammers files, in diverse shapes and sizes; and an anvil. You now find all these in any art school; they were formerly only in “industrial arts” departments. Hardware includes allen-head, phillips-head and binding screws; all kinds of nuts and bolts in stainless steel, bronze and brass; taps and dies; silicon carbide to weld onto bearing surfaces; and abrasives and solvents for cleaning.

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Add to these young helpers when I can get them. Help is precious and a danger. Important work is done in solitude. I will use any time-saving tool, but I must ration my help. I make up for this by working very long hours.

Time one must give as it is called for. Long hours are not a burden. I take pleasure in the slow repetitive operations if they are leading somewhere. Suspense builds up in pausing to make sure a subassembly is right; it heightens when enough is done to get the piece off the ground, like the launching of a ship. A new ship sometimes capsizes: “back to the old drawing board!” One may have to make a piece to find out how to make it, and junk what one learned from.

Much that I make can never be exhibited. I draw what I can on paper first, to plan, to anticipate, to clarify. But it is difficult to find, much less solve, all the space and traffic problems on paper. Models help, but to work small may be harder than to work large; and some qualities, such as flexibility, do not change in direct ratio with size. So I may go from a drawing to a very crude but often large maquette, perhaps of a typical subsection of a complicated piece, improvised, rudimentary, but functional—without proportion, security, finish or elegance. I try to do this very fast, in a day perhaps, to get my direction: to find the limits, to find the proportion, to find if it will work at all. It may take weeks to make the same thing over properly, or it may be scrapped.

Occasionally one is lucky and some completely unforeseen idea comes out of a debacle. My work must be precise or it fails. I am rather sloppy by nature; the precision comes out of need, not personality.

I have been able in the last two years to make larger pieces— the largest is thirty-four feet high. Part of the spectrum of movement is related to size. In sculpture or painting there is a change in thought when the work is bigger than the artist; with movement there is a functional change in performance as well. Two lines twenty-four inches long may swing across each other at three- or four-second intervals. This seems very slow. A big piece can take half a minute to swing from side to side; this is as different as red from purple.

My work must have air. Indoors, movement depends on open windows, air conditioning, fans, or, with the more delicate pieces, merely on walking past. Outdoors the air is never quite still, the direction changes, the breeze is, for the most part, silent. Outdoor space requires large pieces and outdoor wind strong ones. They must not only survive, but behave properly in a forty- or fifty-mile-an-hour wind as well as in the lightest airs. The weight of the rain will make a difference, not to mention snow and ice. I must watch a piece outdoors for months before I can be sure of it. Yet I welcome the range of the winds and the hazards of the weather, even if size disqualifies most of these pieces for galleries and museums. The strength of the structure is not a problem. It faces much less buffeting than an airplane or a tree. In moving it gives to the wind, like a sailing ship. But the movement must be limited by stops that are durable, not too abrupt, don’t mess up the design, and leave the movement free in gentle air. In a high wind, moving parts might hit the ground. Ideally the bearings themselves should so shift the center of gravity with turning (cam action) that gravity itself becomes the brake.

At present my linear forms have a simple triangular section. If over six feet long each comprises three strips at 60°, with spot-welded flanges, tapering to a point with thicker metal at the wide end, which 4

contains the counter-weight and the bearing. Metal must be pieced, as ten or twelve feet are standard lengths. I mark the sheets and have them cut up and the flanges bent at a shop in Albany. My helpers and I weld the parts together in my studio.

I cast counterweights of lead in triangular prisms in one piece for blades up to twenty feet long, in segments weighing twenty-five to thirty pounds apiece for the large ones. The counterweights for each component of my largest sculpture weighed more than a hundred pounds. The hearings are knife edges, much like those on lever scales, with contact surfaces of tungsten carbide polished and very hard, to reduce friction.

Though I do not imitate nature I am aware of resemblances. If my sculptures sometimes look like plants or clouds or waves of the sea, it is because they respond to the same laws of motion and follow the same mechanical principles. Periodicity produces similar images in sand, water, a skip-rope and an oscilloscope, but none of these is a record of the other. Sometimes I have recognized analogues in titles, after the event, such as Sedge and Windflower. Recently I have preferred a title which identifies the piece without suggestion, such as Six Lines Horizontal or Ten Pendulums, Ten Cubes, Ten Rotors.

Even without titles abstract works evoke all kinds of associations. Machinery has always done this, as have ships, plows and tools. What I have associated with leaves of grass others have seen as weapons; of course “spears,” “shoots” and “blades” are ancient botanical terms. I cannot control evocations.

I respect fine workmanship when it furthers a firmly held purpose. I can see the use of exactness to eliminate mystique and confusion. I am interested in the recent trend toward objectification of the work of art and the attempts to eliminate emotive, expressive, subjective or personalized influences from the object, also in the idea of a spectator who has no conditioning as a connoisseur. Others as well as I have begun to find that movement is more accessible than static relations in form, and certainly more so than the esoteric calligraphy which has been so important in recent painting. I feel lucky to live in an epoch when such interests are allowable in art.

I do not claim to be a Constructivist. Yet I respect the humility, rigor, self-effacement and regard for object-rather-than-process which characterized early Constructivist work and gave meaning to the “real” in Gabo’s Realist Manifesto. I see no reason why analytical thought and rational systems need endanger an artist’s work, nor do I mind temperament, if the show of it is not made the purpose. There is a bloom of temperament in Malevich and Albers just as there is a core of reason in Van Gogh and Klee.

Artists prosper, but it becomes no clearer what art is. To present a Swedish roller bearing as art is at least as plausible as Warhol presenting a commercial container. The ultimate in kinetic art may well have been Galileo’s pendulum which swung clear not only of his temperament but of the very rotation of the earth. It was a conscious, bold, imaginative act.

I distrust the idea of art as process or performance, especially when it is a wanton effusion masquerading as “automatic.” Art is not somnambulist. I respect a temperament which can endure control.

Flag Waving Machine II Table Model, 1954, painted steel, brass, and polychrome enamel, unique,62 x 20 x 20 in., 157.5 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm 5

Diptych - The Seasons (two views), 1956, stainless steel and polychrome, unique, 14 x 55 x 22 1/2 in., 35.6 x 139.7 x 57.2 cm 6

Neighbors, 1960, stainless steel and polychrome enamel, unique, 13 1/2 x 12 x 4 1/2 in., 34.3 x 30.5 x 11.4 cm 7

2 Lines Temporal, 1965, stainless steel, unique, 26 3/4 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 in., 68 x 8.9 x 8.9 cm 8

Two Broken Lines Horizontal, 1968, stainless steel, edition of 4, 13 x 37 1/2 x 4 in., 33 x 95.3 x 10.2 cm 9

Unstable Square Variation No. 3, 1971, stainless steel with wooden base, edition of 8, 28 x 20 x 3 in., 71.1 x 50.8 x 7.6 cm 10

Ship, 1955, stainless steel, unique, 15 x 12 x 3 in., 38.1 x 30.5 x 7.6 cm 11

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Two Rectangles Broken Line, 1972, stainless steel, edition of 3, 53 x 73 x 73 in., 134.6 x 185.4 x 185.4 cm 13

Etoile VI, 1977, stainless steel, edition of 3, 18 x 48 x 48 in., 45.7 x 121.9 x 121.9 cm 14

One Fixed, Three Moving Lines (4th arrangement of 5), 1983, stainless steel, unique, 119 x 116 x 6 in., 302.3 x 294.6 x 15.2 cm 15

Single Line Vertical with Gimbal Bronze II, 1990, bronze, unique, 48 x 48 x 9 in., 121.9 x 121.9 x 22.9 cm 16

Two Conical Segments Gyratory Gyratory IV - Seven Axes, 1980, stainless steel, unique, 64 x 73 1/2 x 42 in., 162.6 x 186.7 x 106.7 cm 17

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Nebula III, 1989, stainless steel, unique, 24 x 38 x 36 in., 61 x 96.5 x 91.4 cm 19

Five Rotors Two Cubes, 1993-94, stainless steel and bronze, unique, 17 x 15 x 11 in., 43.2 x 38.1 x 27.9 cm 20

Crucifera - Pillar of Light, 1994, stainless steel, unique, 97 x 20 x 32 in., 246.4 x 50.8 x 81.3 cm A detail of this work is illustrated on the front cover.

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Three Rectangles Horizontal Jointed Gyratory, 1996, stainless steel, unique, 82 x 72 x 72 in., 208.3 x 182.9 x 182.9 cm 22

Annular Eclipse Wall Variation V, 1999, stainless steel, unique, 43 x 50 x 6 in., 109.2 x 127 x 15.2 cm 23

Double Wobble, 2000, stainless steel, edition of 2, 26 x 40 x 6 in., 66 x 101.6 x 15.2 cm 24

GEORGE RICKEY (1907 – 2002)

1907 1928

Born in South Bend, Indiana, of New England heritage Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford, England (through 1929) 1929 BA, Modern History, Balliol College, Oxford, England

Académie L’hôte and Académie Moderne, Paris, France (through 1930) 1941 MA, Modern History, Balliol College, Oxford, England 1942-45 US Army Air Corps 1945 Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York, New York (through 1946) 1947 Studied etching under Mauricio Lasansky, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 1948 Institute of Design, Chicago, Illinois (through 1950) 1995 Gold Medal for Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters 2002 Died in Saint Paul, Minnesota on July 17th S E L E C T E D S O LO E X H I B I T I O N S 1933 1935 1953 1955 1956 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971

Caz-Delbo Gallery, New York, New York Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado Mobile Sculpture, John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana George Rickey: Machines Kinetic Sculptures, Mobiles, Kraushaar Galleries, New York, New York Kinetic Sculpture and Machines, Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana Kinetic Sculpture: George Rickey, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California George Rickey: Kinetic Sculpture, Kraushaar Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey, Düsseldorf Kunsthalle, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany George Rickey: Kinetic Sculpture, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, Illinois George Rickey: Kinetic Sculptures, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts George Rickey: Sixteen Years of Kinetic Sculpture, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Recent Kinectic Sculpture, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Mack Rickey, Halfmannshof, Gelsenkirchen, Germany George Rickey, Haus am Waldsee, West Berlin, Germany Recent Kinetic Sculpture by George Rickey, Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, Washington George Rickey Retrospective Exhibition 1951-71, UCLA Art Council and UCLA Art Galleries, Los Angeles, California (traveling exhibition)

1972 1973

1974

1975 1976 1977

1978

1979

1980 1981

1982

1984

Sculpture by George Rickey, Museum of Art, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa George Rickey, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany George Rickey, Nationalgalerie, West Berlin, Germany George Rickey, Galerie Buchholz, Munich, Germany Sculpture of George Rickey, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania George Rickey, Galerie Espace NV, Amsterdam, the Netherlands George Rickey, Fordham University Plaza at Lincoln Center and Staempfli Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey. Kinetische Objekte Material und Technik, Kunsthalle der Stadt, Bielefeld, West Germany George Rickey. Kinetische Skulpturen, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, West Germany George Rickey, Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, New York, New York George Rickey. Mobile Skulpturen, Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland George Rickey, Gallery Kasahara, Osaka, Japan Skulpturen Material Technik, Amerika Haus, West Berlin, Germany George Rickey: Retrospective Exhibition, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York George Rickey at Makler Gallery, Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania George Rickey, Gimpel-Hanover+Andre Emmerich Galerien, Zürich, Switzerland George Rickey, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada George Rickey: Kinetic Sculpture on Clydeside, Custom House Quay, St. Enoch Exhibition Centre and Carlton Place, Glasgow, Scotland, with the support of the Scottish Arts Council and Glasgow District Council; traveled to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, England; and Manor House, Ilkley, England George Rickey, New Orleans Plus 30, Art Gallery, Newcomb College, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana George Rickey: 30 Years of His Art, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey, Galerie Schoeller, Düsseldorf, Germany George Rickey Kinetische Freiplastiken 1972-1984, Bauhaus-Archiv, West Berlin, Germany Zeit und Bewegung im Werk von George Rickey, Josef Albers Museum, Quadrat, Bottrop, Germany George Rickey Recent Sculptures, Inkfish Gallery, Denver, Colorado

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1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991 1992

1993

1994 1995

1997

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George Rickey in South Bend, Art Center of South Bend, Indiana University of South Bend, Saint Mary’s College; traveled to the Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana George Rickey in Bryant Park, concurrent exhibitions at Maxwell Davidson Gallery and Zabriskie Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey, In Celebration of his Eightieth Year, Carl Schlosberg Fine Arts, Sherman Oaks, California Two Lines Excentric Jointed with Six Angles, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, West Berlin, Germany George Rickey zum 80. Geburtstag, Galerie Pels Leusden, West Berlin, Germany; traveled to Galerie Schoeller, Düsseldorf, Germany George Rickey: Projects for Public Sculpture, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, New York 3 Skulpturen von George Rickey in Köln, Moderne Stadt, Cologne, West Germany George Rickey: Indoor/Outdoor Sculptures, Veranneman Foundation, Kruishoutem, Belgium George Rickey: Two Exhibitions, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, California George Rickey - Important Sculpture, Marianne Friedland Gallery, Toronto, Canada In Celebration of Three Breaking Columns at Rotterdamse, Schouwburg, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands George Rickey, Gallery Kasahara, Osaka, Japan George Rickey: Sculptures 1955-1990, Artcurial, Paris, France George Rickey: Kinetic Sculptures, Galerie Utermann, Dortmund, Germany George Rickey: Art of Movement, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York George Rickey: In Celebration of his 85th Year, Carl Schlosberg Fine Arts, Sherman Oaks, California George Rickey in Berlin 1967-1992, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany A Dialogue in Steel and Air: George Rickey, Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Florida George Rickey in Santa Barbara, University Art Museum, University of California at Santa Barbara, California Rickey: Sieben Kinetische Skulpturen, Galerie Utermann, and Harenberg Verlag, Dortmund, Germany George Rickey: Recent Sculpture. In grateful memory of Edie Rickey, 1924-1995—generous friend, gentle mentor, and humorous humanist, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York Important Early Sculptures 1951-65: In Recognition of His 90th Year, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey: Master of Kinetic Sculpture—In Celebration of His 90th Year, Carl Schlosberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles, California

1998 1999 2000

2001

2002 2003

2004 2006

2007

2008 2009

George Rickey: Motion and Silence, Galerie Dr. István Schlégl, Zürich, Switzerland George Rickey, Veranneman Foundation, Kruishoutem, Belgium George Rickey: Maquettes and drawings related to Crucifera IV, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama George Rickey, Gallery Kasahara, Tokyo, Japan George Rickey: A Retrospective 1958-2000, Soma Gallery, La Jolla, California Installation of Annular Eclipse V, organized by the City of New York Parks & Recreation, Park Avenue Malls Planting Projects, New York, New York George Rickey: A Tribute, University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, California George Rickey: Defining the Fourth Dimension, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York Kunstpreis Finkenwerder 2002. George Rickey, Airbus, Hamburg, Germany George Rickey. Kinetische Skulpturen, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany Kinetische Skulpturen 1956-2000, Verlag der Galerie Brockstedt, Hamburg, Germany, in conjunction with Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey: Retrospective, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey, in conjunction with the group exhibition, Momentum: Selections from the Kinetic Art Organization, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey George Rickey Sculptures, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York Deux Américains à Paris. Sculptures de George Rickey et Kenneth Snelson, Palais Royal, Paris, France George Rickey Sculpture: A Retrospective, Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, Florida; traveled to Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas (through 2009) George Rickey: Selected Works from the George Rickey Estate, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, New York George Rickey: An Evolution, Arts Council, Cultural Development Commission and the City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana A Life in Art: Works by George Rickey, Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, Indiana Innovation: George Rickey Kinetic Sculpture, a series of exhibitions in South Bend, Indiana (through 2010): Rickey Trail, City of South Bend / The Community Foundation of St. Joseph County; Passages of Light and Time: George Rickey’s Life in Motion, The Snite Museum, The University of Notre Dame; George Rickey: Arc of Development, South Bend Museum of Art; Abstraction in the Public Sphere: New Approaches, A Symposium in Celebration of George Rickey, The Snite Museum, The University of Notre Dame

2010 2011

2012 2013 2015

George Rickey: Important Works from the Estate, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, New York George Rickey: Indoor/Outdoor, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York, New York Downtown Albany Sculpture in the Streets - George Rickey, Albany, New York (through 2012) George Rickey, Michael Haas Galerie, Berlin, Germany George Rickey - Sculpture from the Estate, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York George Rickey: Esculturas, Galeria Marlborough, Barcelona, Spain

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York Am Justizzentrum, Cologne, Germany Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland Bayerische Hypotheken-und-Vechsel Bank, AG, Munich, Germany Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, Germany Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania City Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan Gibbs Farm, Kaipara, New Zealand Hakone Open Air Museum, Tokyo, Japan Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan Henkel GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Hyogo Prefectural Museum, Kobe, Japan Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford, California Kansai University, Osaka, Japan Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany Kunsthalle der Stadt, Berlin, Germany Landtag Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York Moderne Galerie (Joseph Albers Museum), Quadrat-Bottrop, Bottrop, Germany Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana Museum of Art, Long Beach, California Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, Texas Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland Neu Perlach, Munich, Germany Neubau des Physikzentrums, Kiel, Germany Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, New York Neues Medizinsches Institut, Heidelberg, Germany New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California Olympiad of Art, Olympic Center, Seoul, South Korea Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York Rijksmuseum Kröller Müller, Otterlo, The Netherlands Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Munich, Germany San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California Shizuoka Museum, Shizuoka, Japan Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Snite Museum, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana Tate Gallery, London, England Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel The Gateway Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California The Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York The Sondra and Marvin Smalley Family Sculpture Garden, Bel-Air, California The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio Union Bank of Switzerland, Zürich, Switzerland Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, Florida Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Williams College Museum, Williamstown, Massachusetts Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Inaugural Gift of the Class of 1961 Public Art Fund Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut

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LIST OF WORKS

Flag Waving Machine II Table Model, 1954 painted steel, brass, and polychrome enamel, unique 62 x 20 x 20 inches 157.5 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm

Ship, 1955 stainless steel, unique 15 x 12 x 3 inches 38.1 x 30.5 x 7.6 cm

Diptych - The Seasons, 1956 stainless steel and polychrome, unique 14 x 55 x 22 1/2 inches 35.6 x 139.7 x 57.2 cm

Neighbors, 1960 stainless steel and polychrome enamel, unique 13 1/2 x 12 x 4 1/2 inches 34.3 x 30.5 x 11.4 cm

Tidal III, 1961 stainless steel, unique 9 x 56 x 8 inches 22.9 x 142.2 x 20.3 cm

2 Lines Temporal, 1965 stainless steel, unique 26 3/4 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches 68 x 8.9 x 8.9 cm

Ten Triangles, 1955 silver, unique 10 x 16 1/2 x 18 inches 25.4 x 41.9 x 45.7 cm

Four Planes Horizontal I, 1966 stainless steel, unique 18 1/2 x 17 x 17 inches 47 x 43.2 x 43.2 cm

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Rectangle I, 1967 stainless steel, AP with an edition of 8 12 x 14 1/2 x 8 inches 30.5 x 36.8 x 20.3 cm

Two Broken Lines Horizontal, 1968 stainless steel, AP with an edition of 4 13 x 37 1/2 x 4 inches 33 x 95.3 x 10.2 cm

Column of Five Planes, 1971 silver, unique 10 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches 25.4 x 14 x 14 cm

Unstable Square Variation No. 3, 1971 stainless steel with wooden base, AP with an edition of 8 28 x 20 x 3 inches 71.1 x 50.8 x 7.6 cm

Two Lines Up with Spirals, 1972 silver wire, unique 18 1/2 x 2 x 2 inches 47 x 5.1 x 5.1 cm

Two Rectangles Broken Line, 1972 stainless steel, AP with an edition of 3 53 x 73 x 73 inches 134.6 x 185.4 x 185.4 cm

Vertical Line with Spiral, c. 1973 gold wire, unique 15 x 2 x 2 inches 38.1 x 5.1 x 5.1 cm

Asters, 1973 bronze, unique 11 1/2 x 6 x 4 inches 29.2 x 15.2 x 10.2 cm

Two Planes Vertical Diagonal Vis a Vis, 1975 stainless steel, edition of 5 12 x 14 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches 30.5 x 36.8 x 21.6 cm

Etoile VI, 1977 stainless steel, edition of 3 18 x 48 x 48 inches 45.7 x 121.9 x 121.9 cm

Two Conical Segments Gyratory Gyratory IV - Seven Axes, 1980 stainless steel, unique 64 x 73 1/2 x 42 inches 162.6 x 186.7 x 106.7 cm

Unstable Square Diagonal Wall, 1981 stainless steel, edition of 3 59 x 56 x 8 inches 149.9 x 142.2 x 20.3 cm

One Fixed, Three Moving Lines (4th arrangement of 5), 1983 stainless steel, unique 119 x 116 x 6 inches 302.3 x 294.6 x 15.2 cm

Wild Carrot II, 1987 stainless steel and lead, unique 31 1/2 x 15 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches 80 x 39.4 x 39.4 cm

Nebula III, 1989 stainless steel, unique 24 x 38 x 36 inches 61 x 96.5 x 91.44 cm

Single Line Vertical with Gimbal Bronze II, 1990 bronze, unique 48 x 48 x 9 inches 121.9 x 121.9 x 22.9 cm

Two Random Lines Oblique - Conical Path, 1991 stainless steel, unique 168 x 120 x 96 inches 426.7 x 304.8 x 243.8 cm

Steelhenge, 1992 stainless steel, edition of 3 8 x 18 x 18 inches 20.3 x 45.7 x 45.7 cm

Two Lines Up with Spirals, 1992 stainless steel wire, unique 6 3/4 x 5 3/4 x 3 inches 17.2 x 14.6 x 7.6 cm

Five Rotors Two Cubes, 1993-94 stainless steel and bronze, unique 17 x 15 x 11 inches 43.2 x 38.1 x 27.9 cm

Crucifera - Pillar of Light, 1994 stainless steel, unique 97 x 20 x 32 inches 246.4 x 50.8 x 81.3 cm

Three Rectangles Horizontal Jointed Gyratory, 1996 stainless steel, unique 82 x 72 x 72 inches 208.3 x 182.9 x 182.9 cm

Two Lines Up Excentric Gyratory II, 1996 stainless steel, unique 126 x 100 x 100 inches 320 x 254 x 254 cm

Annular Eclipse Wall Variation V, 1999 stainless steel, unique 43 x 50 x 6 inches 109.2 x 127 x 15.2 cm

Two Lines Oblique Down, 1999 stainless steel, unique 36 x 22 x 4 inches 91.4 x 55.9 x 10.2 cm

Double Wobble, 2000 stainless steel, edition of 2 26 x 40 x 6 inches 66 x 101.6 x 15.2 cm 29

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Important Works available by: Twentieth-Century European Masters; Post-War American Artists D E S I G N / Sydney Smith P R O D U C T I O N / Devon Johnson, Zoe Milgram, Beatrice Thornton P H O T O G R A P H Y / Devon Johnson P R I N T E D I N N E W YO R K B Y P R O J E C T

© 2016 Marlborough Gallery, Inc. ISBN 978-0-89797-486-8

F R O N T COV E R : B AC K COV E R :

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detail, Crucifera - Pillar of Light, 1994, stainless steel, unique, 97 x 20 x 32 in., 246.4 x 50.8 x 81.3 cm Ship, 1955, stainless steel, unique, 15 x 12 x 3 in., 38.1 x 30.5 x 7.6 cm

GEORGE RICKEY

GEORGE RICKEY Selected Works from the Estate 1954 - 2000 FEBRUARY 4 - MARCH 5, 2016

GEORGE RICKEY Selected Works from the Estate 1954 - 2000

40 WEST 57 T H ST REET N E W YO R K , N E W YO R K 1 0 0 1 9 212-541-4900

FEBRUARY 4 - MARCH 5, 2016

M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M 2016

4 0 W E S T 5 7 T H S T R E E T | N E W YO R K | 1 0 0 1 9 2 1 2 - 5 4 1 - 4 9 0 0 | M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M

GEORGE RICKEY