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 and France. He now calls Texas home.
Ullberg has received six awards from Prix de West, including the 1998 Purchase Award, the foremost recognition in Western art. He has also won numerous awards from the art organizations to which he belongs including Allied Artists of America, the National Arts Club, the National Sculpture Society and the Society of Animal Artists.
In 1990, Ullberg’s peers at the National Academy (NYC) elected him a full academician, making him the first wildlife artist since John James Audubon to receive one of the greatest tributes in American art.
For his monumental works, Ullberg was twice honored by the National Sculpture Society with the Henry Hering Medal for outstanding collaboration amongst patrons, architect and sculptor. He also received the Rungius Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the National Museum of Wildlife Art on artists, authors and conservationists who have made significant contributions to the interpretation and conservation of wildlife and its habitat.
Throughout the summer of 2017, the Carl Millesgården Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, hosted a retrospective featuring 42 of Ullberg’s sculptures, while the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi celebrated Ullberg with an exhibition of 67 of his works during the summer of 2019.
His latest installation, Merry Time Romance (seahorses), an 8-foot-tall bronze sculpture at the entrance to the new Rockport Art Center in Rockport, Texas, was dedicated in January 2023.
Ullberg has installed more than 100 public sculptures in the U.S. and internationally.