Dealsrus is well known for offering quality artwork at reasonable prices. Our reputation is stellar and we stand behind everything we sell. We also accept payments through Authorize net. Our company name is EastCoastArt. 20th/Early 21st Century Illinois/New York Outsider Artist/Surrealist best known for. Designing of whimsical ball machine sculptures, kinetics, paintings, and drawings. Hand signed limited edition color lithograph. Pencil signed lower right–see photos. Pencil numbered lower left–see photos. Image: 13.5″x 18″ Frame: 23″x 27″. Great looking color lithograph by George Rhoads depicting a whimsical, surreal scene of figures walking dogs on a city street. This is a example of Rhoad’s lithographs in very good condition and with a fantastic subject. “George Rhoads, Designer of Fantastical’Ball Machines,’ Dies at 95, ” Obituary. The New York Times. By Robert Sandomire, July 29, 2021. In his ingeniously conceived sculptures, balls seem to travel randomly and trigger various sounds. “Each pathway that the ball takes, ” he said, is a different drama. George Rhoads, a whimsical artist who created elaborate sculptures in which balls traveled seemingly random voyages along labyrinthine paths and set off the ringing of bells, the tinkling of chimes and the vibrating tones of xylophone keys, died on July 9 in Loudun, in western France. His grandchild, Chip Chapin, said he died in the home of his caretaker, Laura Dupuis. Rhoads’s colorful “audio-kinetic ball machines, ” which evoked the workings of watches and roller coasters, were built of comically designed tracks and devices like loop-the-loops and helical ramps, and were usually six- to 10-feet high. Scores of the machines have been installed in children’s hospitals, malls, science museums and airports and elsewhere in a dozen countries, but mostly in the United States and Japan. “Each pathway that the ball takes is a different drama, as I call it, because the events happen in a certain sequence, analogous to drama, ” he said in an interview in 2014 with Creative Machines, which makes ball machines based on and inspired by his designs. The ball gets into certain difficulties. It does a few things. Maybe there’s some conflict. They hit or they wander, whatever it is and then there’s some kind of dramatic conclusion. One of his most frequently viewed machines. Was installed in 1983 in the lobby of Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, where it remained. Eight feet tall and eight feet wide, the sculpture shows its plates spin, its levers flip and its 24 billiard balls roll down ramps. A painter all his adult life, Mr. Rhoads knew little about electronics and was not an engineer, although he took engineering courses at the University of Wisconsin while he was in the Army. He built the ball machines in his own metalworking shop until he entered into a partnership with Bob McGuire, an artistic welder. “George had an engineering mind, ” Mr. What we tried to do with every new piece was to come up with something different, maybe a new device or a modification of something we’d done before. And George would conceive them. He added, George would say,’I’d like to see this happen in this machine,’ and we’d say,’Make us a model,’ and he’d cook up something out of welded wire or wood or cardboard and he’d say,’This is the concept. The final work was built by a staff that included engineers at Mr. McGuire’s Rock Stream Studios in Ithaca, N. (2014) at the Museum of Science in Boston. Rhoads believed the appeal of his creations was their openness – as if viewers were examining the inside of a pocket watch. In all, they created 300 ball machines, some modest wall hangings, others large and some colossal, with amusing names like. (at Boston Children’s Hospital). (the Museum of Science, also in Boston). (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia). Adventure of the Seas. The Strawberry Square retail complex in Harrisburg, Pa. Soars 46 feet high. Was installed in Phoenix in 1998 outside Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field), the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Its features include a ball that bounces down xylophone steps playing the first seven notes of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and another ball that rides along a track and causes the crowd to do “the Wave, ” then zooms into a snake’s mouth. Rhoads believed the appeal of his creations was their openness – as if each viewer were wearing a loupe and were examining the insides of a 1900s Waltham pocket watch. “Machines are interesting to everybody but people usually don’t understand them because, as in a gasoline engine, the fun part goes on inside the cylinder, ” he said. So I’ve restricted myself to mechanisms you can see and understand quickly. George Pitney Rhoads was born on Jan. 27, 1926, in Evanston, Ill. His father, Paul, was a physician, and his mother, Hester (Chapin) Rhoads, was a homemaker. George started drawing as a young boy, and would take apart clocks, then built one himself. Inspired by a visit to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, he built a miniature Ferris wheel. Rhoads graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1946. He also studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the L’Academie de La Grande Chaumière in Paris. Until he began creating the ball machines, Mr. Rhoads painted in various styles, including trompe l’oeil, Surrealism, Expressionism and landscapes. He also worked in origami. To earn a living he held various jobs, including working as a medical illustrator. Mostly, his father’s patients bought them. In the late 1950s, Mr. Rhoads began working in New York City with the Dutch artist Hans Van de Bovenkamp on the design of kinetic fountains that recycled water through gravity-based systems – a link to the ball machines he started building on his own in 1965. An appearance on David Frost’s television show in 1972 brought him commissions for ball machines. A patron, David Bermant, a shopping mall developer, acquired more than a dozen. Rhoads formally began his partnership with Mr. Their collaboration continued until 2007 when Mr. Rhoads for the next five or six years until he trusted the company enough to hand over more of the design work, said Joe O’Connell, president of Creative. Rhoads viewed his sculptures as machines that people could love, unlike factories. “He said they were self-contained machines that don’t pollute – beautiful machines that redeem what we’ve done to our land, ” he said. In addition to his grandchild and son, Mr. Rhoads is survived by his daughter, Daisy Emma Rhoads, and his sisters, Emily Rhoads Johnson and Paula Menary. He was married five times and divorced four times. His third wife, Shirley Gabis, is the mother of his children; his fifth wife, Marcelle Toor, died in 2009. Rhoads acknowledged that his machines were inspired, in part, by Alexander Calder’s abstract constructions, Jean Tinguely’s kinetic, self-destructing sculptures and Rube Goldberg’s cartoons depicting convoluted contraptions. “But you can’t actually make things that Goldberg drew, ” Mr. That’s a severe limitation. 100% Guaranteed to be as described. Ask all questions beforehand. All Sales are Final. All sales are final. We ask for your patience and assure you we are acting as quickly as we can. All lots are accompanied by a name and/or description and lot number for reference. An approximation can be provided beforehand if requested. Thank you for your cooperation in the matter. EastCoastArt (AKA “dealsrus”) warrants the authenticity and authorship of our merchandise. All lots are guaranteed to be as described. Prospective buyers are responsible for asking any and all questions about the merchandise, and to view all photos carefully, before purchasing. Should a dispute arise over the authenticity, it is our policy to have the purchaser obtain at their expense, an opinion (or two, in some cases and at our discretion) of recognized experts in the field, mutually acceptable by both EastCoastArt and the purchaser. We try to depict the merchandise and artwork as accurately as possible with photographs. We do not overly enhance the photos. However, every computer and monitor is different, and how we see the merchandise might differ from what you see. Please bear this in mind when viewing. Contact before purchasing for any questions you have. Unless otherwise specified, frames are considered a throw-in and are not guaranteed in any fashion. Sizes listed in the descriptions are a very close approximation, ie. If the painting is 12.2″ x 14.2″ we would describe such as a 12″ x 14″. This item is in the category “Art\Art Prints”. The seller is “dealsrus” and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped worldwide.

• Production Technique: Lithography
• Framing: Matted & Framed
• Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
• Style: Outsider Art, Surrealism
• Material: Paper
• Theme: Cities & Towns, People, Transportation
• Type: Print
• Features: Limited Edition, Numbered
• Image Orientation: Landscape
• Subject: Cityscapes, Figures
• Signed: Yes
• Original/Licensed Reprint: Original
• Unit of Sale: Single-Piece Work
• Size Type/Largest Dimension: Image: 13.5\