Kent Ullberg

A native of Sweden, Kent Ullberg is recognized as one of 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. Ullberg lived in Botswana, Africa, for seven years, during which he was curator at the Botswana National Museum and Art Gallery for 4 years. He has made his home permanently in the United States and now lives on Padre Island, Corpus Christi, Texas. He also maintains a studio in Loveland, Colorado.

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 Allied Artists of America; the American Society of Marine Art; the National Sculpture Society; Nature in Art, Sandhurst, England; and the National Academy of Western Art in Oklahoma City, which awarded him the Prix de West, the foremost recognition in Western art. He is a recipient of the Briscoe Legacy Award; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Animal Artists; and the Rungius Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the National Museum of Wildlife Art, given to artists, authors, and conservationists who have made significant contributions to the interpretation and conservation of wildlife and its habitat.

Best known for his monumental works executed for museums and municipalities across the globe, his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Omaha, Nebraska, installations are the largest bronze wildlife compositions ever created, spanning several city blocks. Both earned him the coveted Henry Hering Medal from the National Sculpture Society for outstanding collaboration amongst patron, architect, and sculptor. A recent monumental installation is Snow-Mastodon, a life-size bronze mastodon placed outside the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. During the summer of 2017 the Carl Millesgården Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, hosted a retrospective show with 42 of Ullberg’s sculptures.

In September 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 personnel of the institute. His latest installation, Merry Time Romance (seahorses), an 8-foot-tall bronze sculpture at the entrance to the new Rockport Art Center, Rockport, Texas, was dedicated In January 2023. Ullberg has installed more than 100 public sculptures in the U.S. and internationally.

Kent Ullberg is represented by the Broadmoor Galleries, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Corpus Christi Art Connection, Corpus Christi, Texas; Helena Fox Fine Art, Charleston, South Carolina; Pitzer’s Fine Arts, Wimberley, Texas; and Wind Way Gallery, Rockport, Texas.