Scope and ContentIn February David Lee who works with the archives of kinetic sculptor George Rickey visited Fennville in an effort to discover more about the seven months that his boss spent in western Michigan in 1939. According to Rickey, who is still living and active in his profession at the age of 90, the cottage where he stayed in 1939 was "close enough to the lake to walk there." Lee stopped at the Fennville library and quickly discovered that it was a pretty long walk to the lake from Main Street. The librarian suggested to Lee that possibly Rickey had lived on the lakeshore south of Douglas, an area that has always had a Fennville mailing address. Lee visited Saugatuck and took home a copy of Painting the Town: A Century of Art in Saugatuck and Douglas, the book published in conjunction with last year's museum exhibit. He hoped to show the book to Rickey and also to use the illustrations to help identify the location of some of the artist's early paintings. In a recent letter David Lee reported: "As you maybe remember, I visited you last February with questions about the man for whom I work, George Rickey, and his time in the wilds of Fennville back in 1939. The book Painting the Town was quite helpful. I have been able to identify the pavilion both in a drawing and a painting. George was very interested to see the book, but he did not recognize any of the artists as having been in communication with him in 1939. I believe I've established the primary inspiration for Mr. Rickey's retreat to that part of the state as having come from the writer Sherwood Anderson. George remembers that perhaps Anderson rented or owned some sort of cottage along the lakeshore. Do you have any information on this?" Lee also sent photocopies of three pieces of art. One, a painting entitled "Saugatuck Landscape," is a beach scene painted probably in 1939. In 1981 it was a bequest of Mrs. Luike J. Hemmes to Kalamazoo College and is now in their collection. The second painting is of Saugatuck harbor from the approximate location of the present-day St. Peter's Church. The Big Pavilion, Mt. Baldhead (still partially bald) and the Congregational church are prominent in the painting. It is in the collection of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland. The painting was donated to the museum by Hyman Horn, whom Lee identifies as the brother of Milton Horn, the Carnegie artist-in-residence at Olives following Rickey. The third piece was a pencil sketch of the Big Pavilion, bridge and Lake Kalamazoo from the top of Baldhead which Lee found in one of the artist's old sketch books. Rickey was born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1907, and educated in Scotland, England and France. He returned to the United State in 1930 and maintained a studio in New York. He was a copy editor at Newsweek magazine in 1936 and from 1937 to 1939 he was artist-in-resident at Olivet College on a Carnegie grant. During his time there he created a mural that still exists. From August to December 1939 Rickey spent time at the cottage near the lakeshore. Lee said the impression he got was that he had gone there as a vacation from all of the social interaction that his work at Olivet called for, and that he steered clear of other artists in the area. In December he began work as director of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and served on the faculty of Kalamazoo College a post he left in 1940 to go to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, on another Carnegie grant. This grant also called for a mural. After service in World War II Rickey used the GI bill to attend the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and the Institute of Design in Chicago. He then began work in the medium of abstract sculpture. After more experimentation he specialized in outdoor kinetic sculpture, mostly made from stainless steel shapes, balanced to move slowly and more or less continuously in available air currents. He has been nationally recognized and his work is displayed in many museums and outdoor locations in the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Kresge Art Center at Michigan State University, and the City Hall of Fort Worth, Texas. In Europe his sculpture is very popular in Germany, and is on display at many museums and universities and the Mercedes-Benz headquarters. Worldwide he has kinetic sculptures on displayed in Jerusalem, Israel; Seoul, Korea, and at the Tokyo City Hall. He currently maintains studios in East Chatham, New York; Berlin, Germany and Santa Barbara, California. Sherwood Anderson had been a guest lecturer at Olivet College in January of 1939, for three weeks, and returned to the college for a writer's conference July 26, 1939. There has been no previous mention of him visiting the Saugatuck area, where he would have discovered the cottage that Rickey learned about (most surely rented), but it would not have been unreasonable. ... Anyone with information on Rickey's stay in the Saugatuck area, is asked to call Kit Lane, 857-2781, or write a note to the society box. We are also looking for information on Sherwood Anderson and a connection to this area.