Ursula von Rydingsvard was a German-born American sculptor known for monumental works carved and assembled from cedar beams. Her pieces include Zakopane (1987) and Ona (2013) at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, and her work was shown at Storm King Art Center and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. She died in New York on 27 October 2026, aged 84, after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Born in Deensen, Germany, on 26 July 1942 to a Polish mother and a Ukrainian father, she spent her early childhood in displaced persons camps before the family emigrated to Connecticut in 1950. She worked from a studio in Brooklyn from 1981.