“I have been using simple linear forms—‘blades’—since 1961. These lines permit the most economical manifestation that I have found, a kinetic line drawing in space. The taper from thick to thin is my equivalent to the line drawn with a pen or engraved with a burin.”

- 'Construction of a Blade' in George Rickey: Skulpturen, Material, Technik, Berlin, 1979, p. 42

Indiana-born American artist, George Rickey began his career studying drawing and painting at the Académie Lhote and Académie Moderne in Paris under the tutelage of modernist painters André Lhote, Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. The artist’s painting career took a drastic turn when he was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Force, serving from 1942–1945. Heavily influenced by the machinery that surrounded him, Rickey began experimenting with different techniques and mediums. It was at this time that the artist created his first kinetic work. In a letter to the German art historian and curator Eberdard Roters, Rickey stated, “The immediate stimulus for the making of my first mobiles, however, came from the impressions and experiences I had in dealing with technical apparatus in the Air Corps.” [1] By the 1950s, he artist turned away from all other mediums and focused his attention on making kinetic works and mobiles in metal. Rickey found that “sculpture, by its nature, is a ‘thing’” as it experiences space, time and physical relationships. [2] In order to sharpen his focus, he visited Alexander Calder’s studio in Connecticut in June 1951. Rickey collaborated with the sculptor David Smith and studied the Realistic Manifesto of 1920 by pioneering sculptor Naum Gabo, whom Rickey idolized and saw “a lucid, sensitive poetry of space in form” in his works. [3]

[2] Ibid.