2017 Art season

Historic Grounds

19. Ursula von Rydingsvard

"Anastazia"

published at 18/10/2017

Ursula von Rydingsvard’s massive sculptures reveal the mark of the human hand, resembling wooden bowls, tools and walls that seem to echo the artist’s family heritage in preindustrial Poland in the years before the Second World War. She spent her childhood in Nazi labour camps and post-war refugee camps, and her painful early memories imbue her work with great emotional power.

Ursula von Rydingsvard produces tall cedar-wood structures, creating a complex network of individual beams, shaped by sharp-edged, lyrical cutting and glued together to form sensuous puzzle-like surfaces...

She has been awarded numerous prizes, including a Joan Mitchell Prize (1997), an Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994), and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (1983) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1979, 1986). She was also awarded the International Association of Art Critics’ prize in 1992 and 2000.

She has exhibited at Madison Square Park, New York (2006), the Neuberger Museum, the State University of New York (2002) and Storm King Art Center (1992). Ursula von Rydingsvard lives and works in New York.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Ursula VON RYDINGSVARD
GERMANY

Ursula von Rydingsvard was born in Deensen, Germany, in 1942. She obtained a BA and an MA from the University of Miami, Coral Gables (1965), an MFA from the University of Columbia (1975) and an honorary doctorate from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (1991).

A well-known sculptor, she has lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York, for 30 years. After graduating from the University of Columbia in 1975, she started working with what was to become her preferred material: cedar wood.

She is best known for her large-scale, often monumental sculptures, fashioned from beams of cedar that she cuts up and reassembles, covering them with powdered graphite. She deliberately uses crushed beams of varying lengths.

"These abstract shapes, like signatures, refer to things in the real world, revealing the mark of the human hand while calling natural shapes and forces to mind. Shapes typically include simple vases and bowls. Many are suggestive of tools or other artefacts such as shovels, spoons or fences, or allude to primitive dwellings, to geological formations, to landscape or the body”.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, USA
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, USA
Baruch College, New York, USA
Bloomberg Building, New York, USA
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, USA
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, USA
Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, USA
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, USA
De Cordova Sculpture Park + Museum, Lincoln, USA
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, USA
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Coral Gables, USA
Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City, USA
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, USA
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, USA
Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, USA
Madison Art Center, Madison, USA
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, USA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA
Neuberger Museum of Art, State University of New York, Purchase, USA
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, USA
Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, USA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, USA
Queens Family Courthouse, Long Island City, USA
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, USA
San Francisco Airport, San Francisco, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, USA
Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, USA
T. F. Green Airport, Providence, USA
The Contemporary Austin, Austin, USA
The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, USA
Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, USA
University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, USA
Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, USA
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
Williams College, Willamstown, USA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, USA

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2022

Ursula von Rydingsvard, GSA Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden

2021

Tylko sztuka / Nothing but Art, Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, Orońsko, Poland

2019

The Contour of feeling, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA

GDY ONA - WHEN SHE, Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, France

2018

Torn, Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, USA

Now, She, Philadelphia Museum of Arts, Philadelphia, USA

2016

One Wall, One Work, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, USA

2015

Bronze Bowl with Lace, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard and Others: Materials and Manipulations, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

2014

Permeated Shield, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, United Kingdom

2013

Shadows Remain, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, USA

2012

Sculpture, Frost Art Museum, Miami, USA

Sculpture, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, USA

2011

Sculpture 1991-2009, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, USA

Sculpture, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, USA

2010

Erratus, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

2007

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Portland Art Museum, Portland, USA

2006

Sylwetka, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, USA

2004

TEN: Celebrating our first decade of Contemporary Art, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Galerie Lelong, Zurich, Switzerland

2003

Primitive Jarring, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

2002

Cedar Lace and Tossing Loops, Galerie Lelong, Paris, France

2000

Bowl with Folds, Public Art Fund, New York, USA

Sculptures Galerie, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

Sculptures, Galerie Lelong, Zurich, Switzerland

1999

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, USA

1998-1999

Sculpture, The Madison Museum of Contemporary, Madison, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, Royaume-Uni

1997

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

1995

Socks on my Spoons, University Museum of Contemporary Art - Umass Amherst, USA

1994

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

1990

Working with Felt and Cedar, The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, USA

1977

SoHo Center for Visual Arts, New York, USA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2020

NEXUS: Contemporary Art from leading Miami Collections, Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, USA

2015

The Annual 2015: The Depth of the Surface, National Academy, New York, USA

2013

Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA

Glasstress 2013 / 55^th Venice Biennale of Art, Collateral Event, Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, Venice, Italie

2011

Glasstress 2011, Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, Venice, Italie

2008

A Year in Drawing, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

2002

Lesley Dill and Ursula Von Rydingsvard, Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, USA

Primal Screams and Songs, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA), Miami, USA

Shift, Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

2001

MOCA - Selections from the Permanent Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA), Miami, USA

1990

Diverse Representations, The Morris Museum, Morristown, USA

On the web

Ursula von Rydingsvard