George Rickey counts among the most renowned artists of the 20th century. Born on 6 June 1907, George Rickey at first enrolled in Oxford to study history, which he completed with a master degree in 1941. While studying he attended drawing classes as well as several academies in Paris up until 1930.
In 1933 the New York Caz-Delbo Gallery organized the first single exhibition of works by George Rickey. In the 1960s the artist became internationally established: Soon after he showed works in renowned museums in Germany, for instance in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1962), in the 'Haus am Waldsee' in Berlin (1969) or in the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hanover (1973), these activities were presumably fostered by a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service, on which he stayed in Berlin in the late 1960s. Even after the artist's death in 2002 his works are still shown regularly in exhibitions, the last in the Indianapolis Art Center (2009). George Rickey's works are in possession of international collections, for example the 'Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen' in Munich, the Hamburg 'Kunsthalle', the London Tate Gallery or the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Among the most characteristic works are metal objects that call reminiscence of mobiles, the way they are constructed clearly hints at the influence of Alexander Calder. The kinetic and accordingly movable works often carry similar structural principles, such as fragile metal elements mounted to a small base. Often the objects' anatomy follows the structure of a tree with a "trunk", a branching "crown" and small, often colorful "leaves". These filigree works are in clear contrast with works of massive metal plates, which can be found in his later period of artistic creation.