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One Up One Down Oblique, Var. III (1975) distils George Rickey’s exploration of art in four dimensions, incorporating both space and time. Balanced around a central axis, the slender metal resemble the hands of a clock, almost humorously reversing and accelerating the passage of time through movement in space. Unfolding over time, the trajectory of lines and planes invites extended looking, pointing at the temporal dimension of aesthetic experience. As Rickey later remarked, “I think it’s important to make art that you have to wait for.”

George Rickey (1907–2002) was one of the leading figures in twentieth-century kinetic sculpture. Born in South Bend, Indiana, and raised partly in Scotland, he first trained as a painter before turning to sculpture after the Second World War. From the 1950s onward, he became known for works made from carefully balanced metal elements that move in response to air, gravity and changes in the surrounding environment. His sculptures combine precise engineering with simple geometric forms and constant movement. Rickey exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, with major solo exhibitions at institutions including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. His work is held in more than 150 museum collections worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; National Galleries of Scotland; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; and Kunstmuseum Bern.