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San Francisco Public Library
Double L Excentric Gyratory by George Rickey – 1982Jan 252012
Double L Excentric Gyratory by George Rickey – 1982The plaque reads – A gift from an immigrant Carl Djerassi to his adopted City. Dedicated by San Francisco Arts Commission May 1997.
George Rickey was an American kinetic sculptor born on June 6, 1907 in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was a child, his father, an executive with Singer Sewing Machine Company, moved the family to Helensburgh, Scotland. Rickey was educated at Glenalmond College and received a degree in History from Balliol College, Oxford. He spent a short time traveling Europe and studied art in Paris. He then returned to the United States and began teaching at the Groton School. He died at his home in Saint Paul, Minnesota on July 17, 2002 at the age of 95.
George Rickey’s work has appeared in this website before.
Carl Djerassi is an Austrian-American chemist, novelist, and playwright best known for his contribution to the development of the first oral contraceptive pill. In 1959 Djerassi became a professor of chemistry at Stanford University and the president of Syntex Laboratories in Mexico City and Palo Alto, California. The Syntex connection made Djerassi a rich man. He bought a large tract of land in Woodside, California, started a cattle ranch, and built up a large art collection. He started a new company, Zoecon, which focused on pest control without insecticides, using modified insect growth hormones to stop insects from metamorphosing from the larval stage to the pupal and adult stages. He sold Zoecon to Occidental Petroleum.
