MEDIA CONTACT:
Elena Rodriguez, Curator of Exhibitions, RCA
(361) 729-5519 / elena@rockportartcenter.com
Vanessa Ormsby, RCA Communications Manager
(361) 729-5519 / vanessa@rockportartcenter.com
RENOWNED WILDLIFE SCULPTOR KENT ULLBERG
NAMED 2023 ROCKPORT ART FESTIVAL MASTER ARTIST
Feathers and Flippers solo show and Rockport Roots Master Artist exhibition open in June;
Rockport Art Festival July 1–2
ROCKPORT, Texas (May 22, 2023) — Rockport Center for the Arts (RCA) today announced acclaimed wildlife sculptor Kent Ullberg as the 31st Rockport Art Festival Master Artist, a tradition that began in 1993 with Harold Phenix.
Now in its 55th year, the Rockport Art Festival has grown to become one of the most respected, and longest-running juried art festivals in the United States. This year’s event is scheduled for Saturday, July 1, and Sunday, July 2, with the kick-off Art Auction Gala Friday, June 30. Although the long-standing Poster Artist designation was re-branded this year as Master Artist, the tradition of the honoree being featured in a solo show and donating an original work of art for the auction remains.
As this year’s Master Artist, Ullberg’s solo show, Feathers and Flippers, presented by Tito’s Handmade Vodka, will be hosted June 16–Aug. 6 in RCA’s H-E-B Gallery featuring more than 20 of his works, including large and small, and relief sculptures. Past Master Artists will have a group show, Rockport Roots, in the McKelvey Charitable Fund Gallery June 9–July 23.
In addition to an Ullberg piece being included in the auction, RCA also is producing limited edition folios available for purchase, featuring six of Ullberg’s drawings spanning his entire art career, the earliest made when he was 12.
“Long before a sculpture is cast and installed for the public, Ullberg creates hundreds of observational and preparatory drawings,” said Elena Rodriguez, exhibitions curator for Rockport Center for the Arts. “One of my personal favorites is a sketch of iguanas in the Galapagos. Drawn in charcoal with gestural marks, it is clear Ullberg isn’t just capturing what he sees but understanding how the form functions in space. It’s a two-dimensional rendering with enough information to easily be translated into a three-dimensional form.”
A members-only reception with Ullberg and past Master Artists will take place Friday, June 16, from 5–7 p.m., in the H-E-B Gallery, where RCA will unveil Ullberg’s donated piece that will be auctioned off as the final lot on June 30.
A native of Sweden, Kent Ullberg is recognized as one of the world's foremost wildlife sculptors. He studied at the Swedish University College of Art in Stockholm and worked at museums in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Africa and Denver, Colorado. After living in Botswana, Africa, for seven years, he made his home permanently in the United States on Padre Island, near Corpus Christi, while also maintaining a studio in Loveland, Colorado.
The award-winning artist has installed more than 100 public sculptures in the U.S. and internationally, 21 of them on display in the Coastal Bend, including three already owned by RCA as part of their permanent collection: Merry Time Romance, his most recent, is an 8-foot bronze featuring a pair of seahorses, prominently displayed in the RCA Sculpture Garden, Preening Heron, a 5-foot-tall abstracted bird, and Rites of Spring, his famed monumental 13-foot tall bronze sculpture of two whooping cranes, which was the genesis of the original RCA sculpture garden on Aransas Bay.
Ullberg is a member of numerous art organizations and has been honored with many prestigious awards. In 1990 his peers elected him a Full Academician (NA), thus making him the first wildlife artist since John James Audubon to receive one of the greatest tributes in American art. A selection of his memberships includes the National Sculpture Society; the American Society of Marine Art; the Allied Artists of America; Nature in Art, Sandhurst, UK; and the National Academy of Western Art in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which awarded him the Prix de West, the foremost recognition in Western Art. In 2010 he received the Briscoe Legacy Award and in 2016, the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Animal Artists. Then in 2017, the Carl Millesgarden Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, hosted a retrospective show with 42 Ullberg sculptures.
Best known for his monumental works executed for museums and municipalities across the globe, in Sept. 2019 he installed a 21-foot monument “Wings of Hope, Hands of Healing, “at the Mays Cancer Center in San Antonio, Texas, dedicated to all physicians and medical personal of the institute. His Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and his Omaha, Nebraska, installations are the largest bronze wildlife compositions ever done, the latter spanning several city blocks. Both earned him the coveted Henry Hering Medal Award from the National Sculpture Society, NYC. His most recent monumental installation is "Snow-Mastodon," a life-size bronze Mastodon placed outside the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
“I’ve been part of the Rockport Art Community for more than 40 years, having had many exhibits there with artist friends,” said Ullberg. “At the time, the Art Center was a small, modest wooden house that was destroyed during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. We thought that was the end of the Rockport art scene but now we have an awesome 2-city block Art Center with facilities for many art forms, including performing, visual and culinary art. There are four beautiful art exhibit galleries on two levels. I’m very proud to be selected to have a solo show in my favorite gallery, the H-E-B Gallery, curated by Elena Rodriguez, opening June 16, 2023.”
For more information on Rockport Center for the Arts, visit rockportartcenter.com follow RCA on Facebook, or call (361) 729-5519.
Rockport Art Festival Master Artists, 1993–present
1993 Harold Phenix †; 1994 Steve Russell (Founding member of the Rockport Art Association, Inc.); 1995 Al Barnes †; 1996 Herb Booth †; 1997 Jesus Moroles †; 1998 Evelyn Atkinson; 1999 Ricardo Rivera †; 2000 Kay Barnebey; 2001 Jim Offeman; 2002 Flint Reed; 2003 Anita Diebel; 2004 Thom Evans †; 2005 Carol Koutnik; 2006 Hal McCaskill; 2007 Nanci Barnes; 2008 Teresa Justice; 2009 Lisa Baer Frederick; 2010 Shirley Hughes Blackman; 2011 Betty Shamel; 2012 Bruce Bitter; 2013 Bonnie Lou Prouty; 2014 Pamela Fulcher; 2015 Chance Yarbrough; 2016 Joey Blazek; 2017 Barb Robinson; 2018 Debbie Stevens; 2019 Angalee DeForest; 2020 V… Vaughan; 2021 Robin Hazard; 2022 Jeffrey Neel McDaniel; 2023 Kent Ullberg. Legend †: Deceased