[Rarebooks] F/S American Kinetic Sculpture/ Rickey/ Two letters/ catalogues

[Garry R Austin]

We offer for your consideration the following, net to all and postpaid @$195
The second letter is a great artist's letter

From
Austin's Antiquarian Books
PO Box 730
Wilmington, Vt. 05363
mail at austinsbooks.com
802 464-8438

George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 -- July 17, 2002) was an American 
kinetic sculptor. See bio below;

Rickey, George Warren. Kinetic Sculptures. Boston: Institute of 
Contemporary Art, 1964.
First edition; octavo; pp; (16); illustrated in black & white with 
sixteen (16) plates; original printed paper wrappers; very good.

And,
Rickey, George Warren. Kinetic Sculpture, October 20 To November 7, 
1964. New York: Staempfli, 1964.
First edition; octavo; Tri-fold Gallery Brochure for this One Man 
Exhibition; illustrated in black & white; original printed paper 
wrappers; very good.

Glossy photograph of a sculpture measuring 8.5" x 11" with a (Tls) typed 
letter, signed from Rickey to noted art critic Lane Faison, dated 16 
March, 1964. The letter apologizes for not sending the photo sooner. A 
long holograph addenda by "Edie" (spouse?) updates Faison on the 
creative writing course she is taking.

(Tls) typed letter, signed from Rickey to noted art critic Lane Faison, 
dated June 2, 1965 from E. Chatham N.Y. The letter describes in detail a 
sculpture entitled, "Two Lines - Temporal" ; the size, materials etc. 
also the genesis of the piece. Where it was displayed, and it's 
immediate destination, it is about to be sold.  Rickey mentions that the 
piece is pictured on the rear of the Staempfli catalogue mentioned 
above. It is all part of a group called "Peristyle". A great letter from 
the artist.

George Rickey;
Born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1907, Rickey was raised near Glasgow, 
Scotland. Rickey read modern history at Balliol College, Oxford, took 
classes in drawing at the Ruskin School, then studied painting in Paris 
at André Lhote's academy and at the Académie Moderne with Fernand Léger 
and Amédée Ozenfant.

During the 1930s he painted first in a Cézannesque style, later in a 
Depression-era, social realist mode. He supported himself by teaching at 
Groton and at a series of colleges and universities.In World War II 
Rickey served in the Army Air Corps, testing computing instruments used 
by bomber gunners. The work required both mechanical skill and 
understanding the effects of wind and gravity on ballistics, laying the 
foundation of his move from painting to kinetic sculpture.

Under the G.I. Bill, Rickey studied at the Institute of Fine Arts at New 
York University and from 1948-1949 attended the Institute of Design in 
Chicago, an outpost of Bauhaus teaching. Intrigued by both the history 
of constructivist art and by the mobiles of Alexander Calder, he began 
creating kinetic sculptures. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Rickey 
developed systems of motion for his sculpture that responded to the 
slightest variation in air currents. Over the next three decades he 
developed sculpture with parts made of lines, planes, rotors, volumes, 
and churns, moving in paths that change from simple oscillation to 
conical gyrations, describing a variety of planes or volumes. Many works 
during this period have been large-scale public commissions for sites in 
the United States, Europe, and Japan. Rickey died at home in St. Paul, 
Minnesota, on 17 July 2002 at the age of 95.

Samson Lane Faison, Jr. (November 16, 1907 -- November 11, 2006) was an 
American art historian, professor, and director of the Williams College 
Museum of Art.
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