Literature

Irving Sandler, The Empire State Collection: Art for the Public, Empire State Plaza Art Commission, Albany in association with Harry N Abrams, Inc. New York, 1987, pp 22-23 (monumental scale)

Fritz Jacobi, Bladen Skulptur/Sculpture: Works from the Marzona Collection, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1998, illustrated on cover and title pg, ( monumental scale)

Daniel Marzona, Minimal Art, Taschen, 2005 p.45 (monumental scale)

Irving Sandler, Ronald Bladen:Sculpture of the 1960s & 1970s, Jacobson Howard Gallery, New York, 2008, p.4 (monumental scale)

The Cathedral Evening, (sculpture), 1972, Cor-Ten steel, painted, edition 1/3, 10 ft. 3 in. x 29 ft. 3 in. x 24 ft. 8 1/2 in.
Owner: Administered by State of New York, Office of General Services, Corning Tower, Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York 12223, Located Empire State Plaza, Near Agency Building #4, Albany, New York

Remarks:
The sculpture is part of a collection amassed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, under the direction of New York's governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. IAS files contain excerpt from "The Empire State Collection: Art for the Public," New York: Harry Abrams, Inc., 1987, pg. 22-23.

Mattison, Robert S. Ronald Bladen Sculpture: To Conquer Space. The Artist Book Foundation, 2018. Pg. 60,62:

Cathedral Evening (1969) is one of the most dynamic works of Bladen’s career. It was the first of his sculptures to be commissioned for a public venue that was not a museum, Empire Plaza in Albany, the New York State capitol. As mentioned above, Cathedral Evening was originally constructed as a wood prototype for the exhibition 14 Sculptors: The Industrial Edge that took place on the 8th floor gallery of Dayton’s Department Store in Minneapolis, a space loaned to the Walker Art Center, then under construction, for the show. The exhibition cast a wide net for sculptors whose basis was geometric and spatial rather than figurative. In addition to Bladen, it included among others Larry Bell, Robert Grosvenor, Don Judd, Craig Kauffman, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Morris, and Sylvia Stone.

Martin Friedman wrote of Cathedral Evening, “His large sculpture in this exhibition is a massive arrow composed of two converging diagonals precariously cantilevered from two floor wedges. In this piece, Bladen seeks the visual equivalent of velocity and, as in much of his work, wants to evoke the sensations of natural physical forces. Bladen refers to the ‘spread’ of his sculptures, meaning its invasion of the observer’s space.” Bladen himself said, “I want it to take off. You can walk through it,” and he continued, “It is stationary buthas the illusion of an object moving through space yet anchored to the ground.”

In 1970, Bladen received the commission from the selection committee for the Empire Plaza for a work. The years between 1968 and 1970 were the high point of the commissions for the Plaza; sixty-two objects were acquired. Of those objects including both paintings and sculpture, most were pre-existing and chosen by the committee. Only eighteen were selected by the artists. Cathedral Evening was one of those eighteen.