The Evolution of Form

Stuttgart, 1937. The beginning of a life that moves through layers of medium and thought. Ursula Stock first navigates the academic corridors of the University of Monaco in Bavaria, studying the humanities and social sciences. This intellectual foundation precedes her three years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, where the focus shifts toward the tactile and the visual.

The early 1970s arrive with an abstract pulse. Her canvases carry the weight of non-representational thought, a period that finds its first verified exhibition at Galleria del Cavallino in Venice in 1969. By 1974, the abstraction fractures into something more dreamlike. The surrealist style takes hold, anchoring her work from the mid-1970s through the middle of the 1980s. It is a decade of shifting perceptions, where the boundaries between reality and the subconscious blur.

From Canvas to Bronze

A shift occurs in the late 1980s. The brush is set aside for the weight of sculpture. This transition marks a fundamental change in her physical engagement with art. She moves from the two-dimensional plane into the three-scale reality of bronze, stone, and metal.

Her public presence expands through large-scale installations across Germany. In Stuttgart, she leaves permanent marks on the urban landscape:

• A 30-meter concrete relief at Tiefenbachschule in Rohracker (1974).
• An Edelstahl-Stele, a painted stainless steel stele, standing 400 cm tall at Fuchsrainschule (1974).
• The bronze and porphyry Große Vegetation in Neckarsulm (1984).
• A bronze Hydrauliker in Güglingen (1985).

The work becomes heavy, grounded, and structural. She utilizes materials like aluminum, iron sheet, and sandstone to command space.

The Mirror of the Self

Parallel to her public monuments is an intimate, recurring investigation of identity. Her catalog reveals a deep preoccupation with the self-portrait, often using unconventional materials to capture her own image. These works are not mere likenesses but explorations of presence and fragmentation.

The 1960s began with Selbstporträt in oil on hardboard. By 1990, the experimentation reaches a peak with pieces like Bildstock, Selbstbildnis, a drawing utilizing hair, and Stock-Kissen, Selbstbildnis. Even as late as 2013, she manipulates painted aluminum to create Nasocorno (Selbst). This cycle of self-examination spans decades, moving from gouache in 1976 to photography in 2015.

Her legacy remains visible in museum collections and public squares, a record of an artist who refused to remain static within a single medium or style.