by Belinda Rathbone

The first full-length biography of George Rickey was released on September 14, 2021.  Belinda Rathbone’s George Rickey: A Life in Balance examines Rickey’s interactions with the people and places that transformed him from a painter of portraits into one of the world’s foremost kinetic sculptors.  Tracing Rickey’s life through Edwardian-era Scotland to the upheaval of World War II, from the rise of New York as the world’s art capital at mid-century to the turbulent 1960s, and on through the dawn of the new millennium, Rathbone weaves the stories of Rickey’s technical awakenings, experienced in his visits to the factory managed by his father and his engineering work in the Army Air Corps, together with those of his exceptional relationships with his charismatic, devoted wife, Edith Leighton, and artists such as Alexander Calder, David Smith, and Christo.

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Belinda Rathbone (author of The Boston Raphael and Walker Evans: A Biography) has captured the spirit of an artist and his world in this engrossing biography. George Rickey: A Life in Balance is for any reader fascinated by the lives of artists, the creation of enduring art, or twentieth century modernism. Includes 30 photographs that document Rickey’s life and work.