Dreadful Sorry

The five vertical motifs of Ursula von Rydingsvard’s Dreadful Sorry evoke monumental knives in a kitchen rack. The artist was born in Germany during World War II. She lived with her family in refugee camps until she was eight years old, when they immigrated to the United States. Von Rydingsvard’s childhood experiences living in the camps—the rough-hewn living quarters and the families’ reliance on the barest of necessities, including wooden utensils such as knives, spoons and bowls—have always inspired the artist’s work. Von Rydingsvard fuses contradictory elements in her emotionally expressive sculptures. Her forms are at once geometric and organic, abstract and representational.