Ursula von Rydingsvard (née Karoliszyn; born 1942) is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for creating large-scale works influenced by nature, primarily using cedar and other forms of timber.

Early life and education Von Rydingsvard was born in Deensen, Germany in 1942 to a Polish mother and Ukrainian father. As a young child, the artist and her six siblings experienced the German occupation of Poland and the trauma of World War II, followed by five years in eight different German refugee camps for displaced Poles.

In 1959, through the U.S. Marshall Plan and with the assistance of Catholic agencies, her family of peasant farmers boarded a ship to the United States where they eventually settled in Plainville, Connecticut. She received a BA and MA from University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in 1965 and an MFA from Columbia University in New York City in 1975. In the late 1970s, she was part of NYC's Cultural Council Foundation Artists' Project, which was funded under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).

Achievements

Major permanent commissions of her work are on view at the Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA; Storm King Art Center, New York; the Bloomberg Building, New York; the Queens Family Courthouse, New York; the Nelson-Atkins, Kansas City, and the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York. Mad. Sq. Art: Ursula von Rydingsvard was the outdoor solo exhibition presented at Madison Square Park in 2006.

In 2008, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters along with being featured in Art:21 Art in the Twenty-First Century on PBS. A monograph on her work titled The Sculpture of Ursula von Rydingsvard was published by Hudson Hills Press in 1996 and in 2011 Prestel published Ursula von Rydingsvard: Working.

In 2014-2015 Ursula von Rydingsvard had her first British show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (West Yorkshire, UK), her most extensive exhibition to date. The exhibition was accompanied by the Ursula von Rydingsvard 2014 Catalogue, a major publication featuring text by Molly Donovan, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Museum collections

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR De Cordova Sculpture Park + Museum, Lincoln, MA Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, NH Madison Art Center, Madison, WI Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art New York, NY National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX Ulrich Museum, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Williams College, Williamstown, MA Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Notable exhibitions

2021 Ursula von Rydingsvard: Nothing But Art, National Museum, Kraków and simultaneously at the Center of Polish Sculpture, Orońsko and Łazienki Park, Warsaw, Poland 2019 Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. 2018 Now, She, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2018 The Contour of Feeling, The Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2015 Ursula von Rydingsvard, la Biennale di Venezia, Giardino della Marinaressa, Venice, Italy 2014 Ursula von Rydingsvard, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, England 2011-12 Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991-2009, SculptureCenter, Queens, New York; traveled to deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio; and to Frost Art Museum, Miami, Florida 2006 Mad. Sq. Art: Ursula von Rydingsvard, Mad Sq Art at Madison Square Park, New York, NY 1992-4 Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY (Ten-year retrospective)

Awards and grants Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, Poland, 2021 Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work, CAA New York City, NY, 2019 Visionary Woman Honors Award, Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, PA, 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award, International Sculpture Center, Hamilton, NJ, 2014 Honoree, Storm King Art Center Annual Gala, New York, NY, 2012 Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, 2011 Best Show in a Non-Profit Gallery or Space, American Section of the International Association of Art Critics, 2011 Rappaport Prize, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, 2008 Order of the Cross, Polish Consulate, New York, 2008 Mary Miss Resident in Visual Arts, American Academy in Rome, Italy, 2007 2nd prize, Best Show in a Commercial Gallery, American Section of the International Association of Art Critics, 2000 Academy Award in Art, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY, 1994 Best Small Museum Exhibition, American Section of the International Association of Art Critics, 1992 Honorary Doctorate, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, 1991 Individual Artists Grant, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1986 Athena Foundation Grant, Long Island City, NY, 1983 Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, New York, NY, 1983 Individual Artists Grant, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1979 Individual Artists Grant, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1978 Fulbright-Hayes Travel Grant, Washington, D.C., 1975

In popular culture

Annie Liontas's "Bent Lace" in BOMB Magazine Daniel Traub's feature-length documentary of the artist Ursula von Rydingsvard: Into Her Own, 2019

References Notes

Further reading Inside the Artist's Studio, Princeton Architectural Press, 2015. ()

External links Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from PBS series Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century - Season 4 (2007). Ursula von Rydingsvard at Madison Square Park, New York Ursula von Rydingsvard in Sculpture Magazine: A Conversation with Steven Oliver Ursula von Rydingsvard in Works & Conversations Ursula von Rydingsvard at Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY Ursula von Rydingsvard in Frieze Magazine: At The Height of Her Career Ursula von Rydingsvard in The Philadelphia Inquirer