TL;DR
Get art and craft supplies delivered free with Prime
- Fast, free delivery on millions of items
- Prime Video, Amazon Music and more included
- Member-only deals all year
Ursula von Rydingsvard, the sculptor known for monumental works carved from cedar, died at her Manhattan home on October 27 at age 84. Her studio manager attributed her death to Alzheimer’s disease, according to The New York Times. Her work is held by major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA and the Whitney.
Ursula von Rydingsvard, the sculptor whose monumental works were often carved from cedar, died at her home in Manhattan on October 27 at age 84, Hyperallergic reported. Her studio manager, Courtney Childress, attributed the death to Alzheimer’s disease, according to The New York Times. Across a career spanning more than five decades, von Rydingsvard made large-scale abstract sculptures informed in part by childhood memories of wartime displacement.
Von Rydingsvard worked by cutting and assembling large cedar beams, building forms that could resemble cones, vessels, or forces of nature. One sculpture described in the report stood 17 feet tall and was made from about 15,000 pounds of wood. She also worked in bronze, textiles and animal intestines, moving among materials while maintaining a practice centered on hand-built, imposing forms.
Her studio manager, Courtney Childress, described her as a powerful presence in the studio. “She was like the sun. She was this force that pulled people in and kept them orbiting around her,” Childress told Hyperallergic in a phone interview. Childress also said von Rydingsvard “moved through the studio like her hair was on fire, and could never slow down.”
Born in Deensen, Germany, in 1942, to a Polish mother and Ukrainian father, von Rydingsvard experienced repeated displacement as a child. After the war, her family of nine lived in eight Nazi slave-labor and postwar refugee camps before traveling to the United States in 1950. She later studied at the University of Miami and Columbia University, where she earned a master of fine arts degree in studio art in 1975.
A Major Voice in Monumental Sculpture
Von Rydingsvard’s death marks the loss of an artist whose work connected physical scale with memories and sensations drawn from daily life. Rather than treating cedar only as a material for construction, she shaped it into forms that suggested bodies, landscapes and familiar objects. Her sculptures brought a distinct tactile presence to galleries and public-facing settings.
Her standing in the art world is reflected in solo exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Museum in Krakow and Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the United Kingdom. Works by von Rydingsvard are also in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. These collections and exhibitions give her work a continuing presence for audiences beyond her lifetime.
The source report describes her practice as departing from the aloof character associated with 1970s minimalism. Her large, worked surfaces and references to anatomy, the environment and household vessels offered a different way to engage with abstraction: one shaped by material, touch and personal recollection.
Popular right now
Breville Barista Pro Espresso Machine with Grinder, Brushed Stainless Steel
Samsung 48-Inch S90H OLED 4K Smart TV (2026)
De’Longhi Classic Matte Black Espresso Machine with Milk Frother
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
Displacement and the Language of Cedar
Von Rydingsvard traced aspects of her artistic vocabulary to early experiences, though she resisted reading her work as straightforward autobiography. In an interview with Art21, she discussed how the wooden barracks of the camps and the pre-industrial wooden homes of Poland informed her interest in cedar. The material’s familiarity and physical qualities became part of a larger visual language rather than a direct illustration of particular events.
She also described drawing on sensory memories: the feel of a linen nightgown and the warmth of the sun on her body. Those recollections help explain why her abstract works could evoke domestic life or the human body without depicting either literally. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Miami in 1965, she completed her MFA at Columbia in 1975 and developed the practice that brought her broad recognition.
Her honors included a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. The source report notes both those awards and the wide institutional reach of her work, from museum collections in New York to exhibitions in Poland and the United Kingdom.
““She moved through the studio like her hair was on fire, and could never slow down.””
— Courtney Childress, speaking to Hyperallergic
Details of Her Final Years
The source report gives October 27 as the date of von Rydingsvard’s death and says she died at her Manhattan home. It attributes the reported cause, Alzheimer’s disease, to her studio manager, citing The New York Times. The material provided does not include further information about the timing of her diagnosis, her final months, funeral arrangements or memorial plans.
It is also not clear from the report whether museums or galleries plan exhibitions or other public tributes. No such announcements are included in the available source material.
Museum Tributes and Estate Plans
The report does not identify a forthcoming memorial, exhibition or public service. Further information may come from von Rydingsvard’s studio, representatives, museums that hold her work or galleries that presented her exhibitions. Until those details are announced, her sculptures remain the clearest ongoing record of her work, including pieces held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA and the Whitney.
Key Questions
How old was Ursula von Rydingsvard when she died?
She was 84, according to Hyperallergic’s report.
When and where did she die?
Von Rydingsvard died at her Manhattan home on October 27, the report said.
What was the reported cause of her death?
Her studio manager attributed her death to Alzheimer’s disease, according to The New York Times, as cited by Hyperallergic.
What was Ursula von Rydingsvard known for?
She was known for monumental abstract sculptures, particularly works made by cutting and assembling cedar beams. She also worked with bronze, textiles and animal intestines.
Where can her work be seen?
Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She also had solo exhibitions at institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Source: rss
