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George Rhoads
George Rhoads with his ball machine Peaceaball Kingdom.
George Rhoads with his ball machine, "Peaceaball Kingdom"
Born
George Pitney Rhoads

(1926-01-27)January 27, 1926
Evanston, Illinois, United States
DiedJuly 9, 2021(2021-07-09) (aged 95)
Chinon, France
EducationUniversity of Chicago, Chicago Art Institute
Known forAudiokinetic sculptures, ball machines, origami, painting, wind sculpture
Notable work42nd Street Ballroom, Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York
Newton's Daydream, Clark Planetarium, Salt Lake City, Utah
Tower of Sisyphus, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Having a Ball, Ontario Science Center, Toronto, Ontario
University Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio
MovementKinetic art
Websitegeorgerhoads.com

George Rhoads (January 27, 1926 – July 9, 2021) was a contemporary American painter, sculptor and origami master. He was best known for his whimsical audiokinetic sculptures in airports, science museums, shopping malls, children's hospitals, and other public places throughout the world.

Early life

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Rhoads was born in Evanston, Illinois, the oldest of four children. His father, Paul S. Rhoads, was a physician and professor of internal medicine at Northwestern University. His mother, Hester Chapin Rhoads, was trained as an interior decorator.[1]

Rhoads attended the University of Chicago with the goal of studying physics and mathematics. After earning enough credits to complete his associate degree, he began taking design and drawing classes at the Art Institute in Chicago. Two years, later he left Chicago and moved to New York City to become a painter. His work focused on portraits and impressionistic cityscapes, but he was not critically or financially successful.[1]

In 1952, Rhoads moved to Paris to continue painting. It was there that he met the American origami expert Gershon Legman who introduced him to the art of origami and the work of Akira Yoshizawa. This meeting sparked Rhoads' interest and he began practicing origami and inventing new folds. His most notable contribution to the field became known as the Blintzed Bird Base, now a standard origami fold used for creating an animal with four legs, two ears and a tail from a single sheet of paper.[2]

Audiokinetic ball machine sculptures

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George Rhoads working on a ball machine.
George Rhoads building a rolling ball sculpture

Rhoads created his first rolling ball machine in the late 1950s.[3]

In the 1960s, Rhoads began experimenting with kinetic sound-producing metal sculptures. As he described these early machines, "You have a whole range of things happening in succession. Little balls rolling down a track are the motive power that hits a hammer that hits a xylophone bar or blows a whistle." After seeing an exhibit of Rhoads' ball machines in Greenwich Village, the sculptor Hans Van de Bovenkamp hired him to invent devices to use in his metal fountains. Eventually, Rhoads began creating fountains of his own.[1]

Rhoads continued to develop his audio-kinetic sculptures and his work gained national prominence after being fshown on The David Frost Show and Today.[4] In the early 1970s, the shopping mall magnate David Bermant commissioned him to build audiokinetic sculptures for his shopping centers in Rochester, New York, and Hamden, Connecticut, and for years afterward continued to promote and sell Rhoads' work.[5]

Rhoads' sculptures became known for their precise clockwork-like mechanisms governed by weight and timing while still maintaining the appearance of spontaneity and randomness. He promoted the concept that the machine itself was a work of art, and his pieces were designed to demystify machinery and stimulate viewer reaction.[6] Modernist sculptor and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, James Seawright, said of Rhoads' sculptures: "they embody almost every basic element of machinery, combined in a bewildering variety of ways. There's a level of mechanical genius behind inventing complex mechanisms."[7]

In response to the growing number of commissions, Rhoads partnered Robert McGuire to create his sculptures at RockStream Studios in Ithaca, New York. The studio and Rhoads' whimsical sculptures were later featured in an episode of the American children's television series, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.[8]

This is a sketch of one of the ball machines created by George Rhoads, Earthworks.
This is a sketch of one of the ball machines created by George Rhoads, Earthworks

In 1981, Rhoads was commissioned to build a sculpture entitled 42nd Street Ballroom for the New York/New Jersey Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, which ushered in a period of production for larger, monumental ball machine sculptures.[9] In these large machines, chain-driven lifters carry balls to the top of the sculpture. Then, using only gravity, the balls travel down several different tracks that loop, twist and spiral. The balls trigger motion, hit objects, strike bells, gongs, chimes, drums and even xylophone bars, allowing each machine to create its own music. Once the ball reaches the bottom of the sculpture, it is lifted to the top and the process continues.[10]

In 1990, Rhoads created a kinetic rolling ball sculpture titled Newton's Dream that was installed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It was replaced with a pair of new machines, jointly titled Newton's Convergence, in 2017.[11]

Rhoads' sculptures have been installed in public spaces and private collections around the world.[9] The pieces range in size from small wall-mounted sculptures to machines that fill entire rooms and span multiple stories.[12] Some of his work belongs to permanent museum collections at institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago.[6] Nearly all of his sculptures are still in operation and they have been noted for their popularity with the public.[9]

In 2007, Creative Machines (located in Tucson, Arizona) took over the creation of Rhoads' sculptures and continues the tradition of Rhoads' artwork. The company continues to use the techniques developed by Rhoads in its ball machine sculptures by incorporating similar fabrication methods, design elements and strategies for making reliable, long lasting sculptures.[7]

Death

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Rhoads died at his son's home in Chinon, France, on July 9, 2021, at the age of 95.[13]

Selected public works

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Based on Balls Ball Machine.
Based on Balls is a baseball-themed ball machine sculpture in the plaza of Chase Field, in Phoenix, Arizona

Museums/collections

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Detail from Bolas Bulliciosas Ball Machine
This is one of many devices created for the Bolas Bulliciosas Ball Machine, located in Parque Plaza Sesamo in Monterrey, Mexico.

Museums

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Collections

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1) Perpetuball Motion Machine No. 1 at Salmon Run Mall 2) Science on a Roll at The Tech Museum of Innovation; 3) Tower of Sisyphus at Chesapeake Energy Corporation; 4) Holiday for Technology at Allen Bradley Company; 5) Peaceaball Kingdom at University Children's Hospital at Chapel Hill; 6) Zippy Zoo at Columbia Presbyterian Babies & Children's Hospital
  • Chockablock Clock Ball Machine, located in Strawberry Square, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
    Chockablock Clock Ball Machine, located in Strawberry Square, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
  • Archimedean Excogitation can be found at the Boston Museum of Science and is said to hold the attention of viewers for much longer than many of the other exhibits housed there.
    Archimedean Excogitation can be found at the Boston Museum of Science and is said to hold the attention of viewers for much longer than many of the other exhibits housed there.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Johnson 2011, pp. 2–26.
  2. ^ Harbin 1997, pp. 236–244.
  3. ^ "Machines That Play". Sculpture Digest. March 13, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
  4. ^ Watkins 2006, p. 215.
  5. ^ "Stop, Signs!". The Village Voice. December 8, 1987. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  6. ^ a b "George Rhoads". The David Bermant Foundation: Color, Light, Motion. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  7. ^ a b "Creative Machines Ball Machine Sculptures" (PDF). Creative Machines. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 25, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  8. ^ Mister Rogers' Neighborhood , season 29, episode 13: "When Things Get Broken", March 25, 1999.
  9. ^ a b c Weigang, Jim (October 1988). "Clumper Upper to Wok Dumper to Chute to Helix to Block". Smithsonian. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  10. ^ Caney 2006, p. 347.
  11. ^ "Rehabilitation of "Newton's Dream" A Kinetic Ball Machine at The Franklin Institute". Anvil Works. Retrieved February 1, 2024.
  12. ^ a b c d "George Rhoads: Ball Machine Sculpture Catalog" (PDF). Creative Machines. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 26, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  13. ^ "George Rhoads". Ithaca Times. July 21, 2021. Retrieved July 24, 2021.
  14. ^ Finckel, Joe (November 2, 2019). "A Love Note to the Plattsburgh Ball Machine". Press-Republican. Plattsburgh, NY.

Bibliography

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