By using this website, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site usage. View our Privacy Policy for more information.
The map below guides you on a tour of Rickey’s monumental sculptures shown shown in NYC in 2021–2022.
See Rickey Map
More About Rickey in NYC

As of 2021, it had been over twenty years since George Rickey installed the first sculpture to be featured on Park Avenue, starting a tradition that has continued with work by various renowned artists.

During August 2021–May 2022, Rickey returned to New York with nine sculptures on Park Avenue and three works in the Kasmin Sculpture Garden adjacent to the High Line, making this the largest exhibition of his monumental sculptures ever shown in the City.

This map guides you on a tour of those sculptures and of his Annular Eclipse on 6th Avenue at 48th Street. 

Who is George Rickey?

George Rickey (1907-2002) was an American artist, best known for his large-scale, geometric, kinetic sculptures. Many of his artworks were designed to be seen outside, made of stainless steel that reflects its changing surroundings, and naturally powered by air currents. His work is represented in many leading museum collections worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

Rickey was born in South Bend, Indiana. His father was a mechanical engineer and his grandfather was a clockmaker, and they both encouraged his interest in engineering and design. Rickey studied painting and drawing in Oxford, Paris, and Chicago. He became an art teacher and an artist, working and living for much of his life in upstateNew York. In the 1950s, Rickey developed his signature approach to kinetic sculpture.

What is Kinetic Sculpture?

Kinetic sculpture is three-dimensional art that moves. The movement can be generated by machines, people, or – as with Rickey’s works – nature.

Rickey was one of two famous 20th-century artists known for kinetic sculpture, the other being Alexander Calder. Taking Calder’s mobiles as his starting point, Rickey combined his artistic and engineering skills to create complex types of movement, utilizing harmonic and gyratory motion to expand the dynamic potential of kinetic art.

Rickey said that “motion, which we are all sensitive to, which we are all capable of observing without having to be taught, is a sensation that appeals to the senses just as color does. It has an equivalent of the spectrum, different kinds of types of motion. I think that one can, to a very considerable extent, isolate motion as a visual component and design with that.”

1

Three Squares Gyratory I

Park Avenue @ 56th Street

1972-1975, Stainless steel, 14’6” x 14’

2

Space Churn with Octagon

Park Avenue @ 55th Street

1971, Stainless steel, 180” x 96”

3

Chevron Theme

Park Avenue @ 55th Street

1990, Stainless steel, 13’ x 10’6”

4

Six Lines in a T

Park Avenue @ 55th-54th Streets

1964-1976, Stainless steel, 14’6” x 22’6”

5

Two Conical Segments Gyratory Gyratory II

Park Avenue @ 54th Street

1979, Stainless steel, 10’3” x 10’4”

6

Untitled Circle

Park Avenue @ 54th Street

2002, Stainless steel, 10’3” x 10’4”

7

Breaking Column II

Park Avenue @ 53rd Street

1989, Stainless steel, 18’10”

8

Two Planes Vertical Horizontal IV

Park Avenue @ 53rd Street

1974, Stainless steel, 20’ x 13’8”

9

Four L’s Excentric II

Park Avenue @ 52nd Street

1987-1990, Stainless steel, 17’8” x 6’

10

Annular Eclipse Sixteen Feet I

6th Avenue @ 48th Street

1998, Stainless steel, 25’ x 23’

11

Five Lines in Parallel Planes

High Line @ 27th Street

1966, Stainless Steel, 25’4”

12

Peristyle II

High Line @ 27th Street

1966, Stainless steel, 10’6” x 30’

13

Two Red Lines

High Line @ 27th Street

1963-1975, Stainless steel and red paint, 36’ x 36’

Rickey NYC was developed by Maria Lizzi, Amanda Perry, Victoria Petway, Lisa Beth Podos, and Hilary Vlastelica.
Photographs of works on Park Avenue by Diego Flores, courtesy of Kasmin.
© George Rickey Foundation, Inc.