The New Art on Campus
Dec. 19, 2018
A vintage sculpture by renowned abstract artist Tony Rosenthal gets a new life on the Brooklyn College campus.The West Quad lawn has a new resident occupant and it’s 20 by 20 by 20-feet of steel tubing residing by the back entrance to James Hall.
It’s Hammarskjold, a 1977 sculpture by the renowned artist Tony Rosenthal, whose famous public works currently enhance many places in the New York City landscape—including the front of the New York Public Library, Astor Place in the Village, and Police Plaza—as well as many major cities across the country. Rosenthal passed away in 2009.
The giant work of art comes as a gift from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in Manhattan, which was looking to clear some space on 27th Street, where the piece found a home for nearly 40 years after first being exhibited at the United Nation’s Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza after Rosenthal created it in 1977.
Many logistical arrangements went into getting the piece to the Midwood campus, such as building a concrete pad for the sculpture to sit on that could take its weight, and ensuring that the ground underneath it was suitable.