CLOSE UP: Eye Hook in the 4th Floor Ceiling Once Suspended a Kinetic Sculpture by George Rickey (1907-2002)

Eye Hook on the 4th Floor Suspended a Mobile by George Rickey

     If you look high up on the 4th floor ceiling above the main stairwell, you'll notice a large eye-hook in the center. Over the 16 years I've been at Worcester Art Museum, I've heard various theories about what the hook was used for (some ideas more far-fetched than others). Recently, it was suggested that it could've been used to suspend a Calder-type mobile, and I was asked to look into it. I found, through various sources, that the eye-hook was indeed placed there to suspend a piece of artwork that was here on loan many years ago... a large kinetic sculpture by George Rickey (1907-2002). The mobile once filled the empty void between the third and fourth floors.