Major Mark Park

What is this artwork?

Wingdale by Roger Bolomey (1918 – 2011) is one of six artworks sponsored by the Association for a Better New York (ABNY) in the early 1970s. ABNY was a group formed in 1971 by 100 business leaders under the direction of Lewis Rudin, and whose goal was to galvanize the private sector in augmenting the City’s efforts to deliver public services as well as help upgrade and beautify public spaces. ABNY bought the sculptural pieces with the intent of displaying them on a rotational basis at varying sites throughout the five boroughs.

The painted Cor-ten steel Wingdale was first displayed in 1971 at the northern plaza of Dante Park opposite Lincoln Center in Manhattan, and then in front of the Queens Supreme Courthouse the following year. The sculpture was moved again as intended and installed in 1973 at Major Mark Park where it remained on a permanent basis, as the program was discontinued.

The style of Wingdale is typical of Bolomey’s work in the decade from 1961 to 1971, exhibiting a strong constructivist, spare abstract aesthetic. Many of these pieces, as with this one, explore a visual relationship between two faceted planar vertical columns intersecting and rising from a common base.

The sculpture was conserved and repainted in 2012 by NYC Parks Citywide Monuments Conservation Program, with support from ABNY. A long-standing provisional base that had disguised the lower portion of the sculpture was removed and the sculpture was remounted on a concrete foundation flush with the surrounding lawn.

Who is the artist?

Artist Roger Bolomey was born in Torrington, Connecticut. Between 1947 and 1950 he studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. From 1948 to 1960 he considered himself primarily a painter, but took up sculpting in earnest in 1960, achieving recognition for his spare, geometric welded-steel pieces.

Bolomey was a professor of art at Herman H. Lehman College (CUNY) from 1968 to 1975 and served as chairman of the art department during the last two years of his tenure there. During that time, he lived and worked in Wingdale, New York (in the township of Dover Plains), from which this sculpture derives its name.

Bolomey’s work was included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe, including shows at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, the Whitney Museum of Art, and Royal Marks Gallery. A piece of his was displayed in the American Express Building at the New York World’s Fair of 1964-65. In 1968, Bolomey exhibited Zinal I at the Brooklyn Museum, as part of the “Sculpture of the Month” program managed by Doris Freedman of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs.

Besides Wingdale, his public commissions include sculptures at the New York State Office building in Hauppauge, the South Mall project in Albany, New York, First Street Park in Evansville, Indiana, Southridge Shopping Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and P.S. 152 in the Bronx, New York. Of his life's endeavors, Bolomey commented: "My ultimate goal is to lead a fully creative life with the hope that what I do and the way I live will stimulate others to do the same."