The Philadelphia Museum of Art has installed two monumental sculptures by Ursula von Rydingsvard. Bronze Bowl with Lace (2013–14, cast 2017–18) and Elegantka II (2013–14, cast 2016) which will be on view over the course of the next year in the Anne d’Harnoncourt Sculpture Garden. Standing between 10 and 20 feet tall, these sculptures convey the artist’s complex approach to scale, material and technique.

Bronze Bowl with Lace was cast from a full-scale cedar model. The top of the bronze is perforated and delicately lit from within, its soft amber light illuminating the evening sky. Elegantka II is a urethane resin cast of another full-scale cedar model. The spiral form undulates from its narrow base through a knotty midsection and into its voluminous crown.

The Museum’s presentation of this artist’s work coincides with the exhibition Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling presented at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, guest-curated by Mark Rosenthal, which focuses on von Rydingsvard’s artistic development since 2000. Many of the works have not been exhibited in the United States before.

Born in Deensen, Germany, Ursula von Rydingsvard has lived and worked in New York since the 1970s. Her work has been broadly exhibited internationally and is represented in the collections of major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Walker Art Center; and the Storm King Art Center.