George Rhoads

George Rhoads
George Rhoads with his ball machine, "Peaceaball Kingdom".
Born	George Pitney Rhoads (1926-01-27) January 27, 1926 (age 91) Evanston, Illinois, United States
Education	University of Chicago, Chicago Art Institute
Known for	Audiokinetic Sculptures, Ball Machines, Origami, Painting, Wind Sculpture
Notable work	42nd Street Ballroom, Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York, NY Newton's Daydream, Clark Planetarium, Salt Lake City, UT Tower of Sisyphus, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Oklahoma City, OK Having a Ball, Ontario Science Center, Toronto, Ontario University Hospitals, Cleveland, OH
Movement	Kinetic Art
Website	www.georgerhoads.com

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

George 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.

Rhoads attended the University of Chicago with the goal of studying physics and mathematics. After earning enough credits to complete his associate degree, Rhoads began taking design and drawing classes at Chicago’s Art Institute. 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 met with little critical or financial success.

In 1952, Rhoads moved to Paris to continue painting. It was there that he met 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.

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, sculptor Hans Van de Bovenkamp hired him to invent devices to use in his metal fountains. Eventually, Rhoads began creating fountains of his own. Rhoads continued to develop his audio-kinetic sculptures and his work gained national prominence after being featured on The David Frost Show and the Today show. In the early 1970s, shopping mall magnate David Bermant commissioned Rhoads to build audiokinetic sculptures for his shopping centers in Rochester, NY, and Hamden, CT, and for years afterward continued to promote and sell Rhoads’ work.