Ursula von Rydingsvard - Sculptor

[masquerade]

I fell in love with her watching a preview of the upcoming season of PBS's Art 21. She is featured in the episode "Ecology"

Ursula von Rydingsvard (1942 -) is a Polish-American abstract sculptor. Born in a German refugee camp, she emigrated to Connecticut with her family in 1950, and later studied art at Columbia University. There, she developed her distinctive style: folded, organic forms constructed from sawn and chiseled cedar beams, sometimes painted or blackened with graphite. Her sculptures are frequently monumental in scale and exhibited outdoors.
Today, von Rydingsvard is on the art faculty at the School of Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited widely, and is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Storm King Art Center, the University of Massachusetts public art collection, and other galleries.

wikipedia

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Pod Pacha, 2003. Cedar, graphite and motor.

pam.org (she currently has an exhibit at the portland art museum)

 

[masquerade]

from galeriele lelong:

Wall Pocket, 2003-2004
Cedar, graphite
162 x 72 x 65 inches (411.5 x 182.9 x 165.1cm)

Weeping Plates, 2005
Cedar
Left plate: 12'2\\\\" x 9'6\\\\" x 6.5\\\\"
Right plate: 10'8\\\\" x 8'5\\\\" x 8\\\\"

Plate with Dots, 2006
Cedar
115 x 89 x 3 1/2 inches (292.1 x 226.1 x 8.9 cm)

Dubeltowa (Double), 2006
Cedar, graphite
38 x 70 x 40 inches (96.5 x 177.8 x 101.6 cm)

Czara z babelkami, 2006
Cedar
16'10\\\" x 10'5\\\" x 6'2\\\"
Installation at Madison Square Park, New York
May 12, 2006–February 28, 2007

 

[masquerade]

Damski Czepek, 2006
Polyurethane resin
11'11\\\" x 33'10\\\" x 30'4\\\"
Installation at Madison Square Park, New York
May 12, 2006–February 28, 2007

berwici pici pa, 2004
Cedar, graphite
Public commission for the Bloomberg Building, New York

katul katul, 1999-2002
Plastic, aluminum
52 x 40 feet (15.8 x 12.2 meters)
Permanent sculpture for the Queens Family Courthouse, Jamaica, New York

River Bowl, 2001-2002
Cedar
174 x 120 x 120 inches (442 x 304.8 x 304.8 cm)

same source

 

[SomethingElse]

Wow, what amazing structures and constructions. Thank you for posting von Rydingsvard's work, masquerade! She looks like a very powerful person, like her pieces! More of her work can be seen here.

 

[two months off]

Whoo, amazing work. I specially like the weeping plates.
Thanks for posting!!

 

[leda]

thanks to both masquerade and SomethingElse!
beautiful wooden cocoons i'm in awe

 

[masquerade]

here is a preview of her in art21.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XJiCR3a2E0I

 

[gius]

Great thread.. Her work is wonderful
The impact of it being in just wood is very strong
I love it when artists take a certain material and really make it their own
especially natural objects which become sort of unnatural and have their own life
She reminds me of the 'wood version' of Magdalena Abacanowicz