Obituary "She was like the sun. She was this force that pulled people in and kept them orbiting around her," said her studio manager.

October 27, 2026 — 3 min read

Artist Ursula Von Rydingsvard poses in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park with her works at the Venice Biennale on May 5, 2015. (photo Venturelli/Getty Images)

Ursula von Rydingsvard, a sculptor whose monumental objects were partly inspired by her childhood in post-World War II refugee camps, died in her Manhattan home this morning, October 27, at 84. The artist's studio manager, Courtney Childress, attributed Von Rydingsvard's death to Alzheimer's disease, according to the New York Times .

During her over five-decade career, Von Rydingsvard chipped away at enormous cedar beams to create a menagerie of massive sculptures, from an assembly of cones to a 17-foot-tall tornado-shaped behemoth made from 15,000 pounds of wood.…