Jane Ullman; Sculptor of the Famous
Jane F. Ullman, a sculptor whose bronze portraits of artists and scholars stand in locations ranging from UCLA to Coluz, France, died Thursday of cancer in Santa Monica at the age of 83.
Known for her mastery of portraiture as well as her abstract terra cotta and marble forms, Mrs. Ullman’s subjects included cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (displayed at the Music Center); bibliophile Jake Zeitlin (at UCLA); psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim (at the University of Chicago) and writer and poet Gertrude Stein (Coluz, France).
Additionally, she was known for her Cubist-influenced, tabletop sculptures--abstractions diametrically opposed to her literal portraits. In them she amassed cubes, rectangles and irregular geometric configurations in vertical patterns that were likened by critics to “totemic structures.”
Locally, Mrs. Ullman’s work was seen most recently at the Toby Moss gallery in Los Angeles. Her work had been exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Chicago Art Institute, Stanford University and Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.
She is survived by a son and two granddaughters, who ask contributions in her name to the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena.
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