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Ernest Tino Trova (1927 - )
Known for his "Falling Man" series in abstract figural
sculpture, he created hard-edge images that brought him widespread
attention because they seem to strike a chord of empathy with viewers
who recognized themselves as human beings challenged by a technological
society. Also, they are the only creatures aware of their mortality. He
is considered highly innovative because of his successful combining of
technological methods to create his art.
Interpretation as to overall meanings vary with some thinking that
it refers to the fall of man in the religious sense and others seeing
it as a commentary on the tragic mechanization of society that reduces
human beings. Trova has said that "falling" refers to the
fact that man moves from one position to the next in an eventual fall
to inevitable oblivion" (Kultermann 11).
He has lived his entire life in St. Louis, Missouri
although his reputation is nationwide. He did not think it necessary to
study art because he believed in his own instincts, although he drew
from a variety of sources including figurative painters such as Francis
Bacon, Jean Dubuffet, and Willem DeKooning.
The "Falling Man" series resulted from a unique offer from
the Famous-Barr Department Store in St. Louis, where he had worked as a
window decorator in his twenties. Store personnel told him that in
exchange for creating a series of works to exhibit at the city's 1964
bicentennial celebration, he could have unlimited access to the store's
materials and workers. The store's display department was a great
setting for him to be creative with his interest in Pop Art, and this
project gave him assembly-line assistance of carpenters, electricians,
and painters.
The result was that all images had Falling Man figures, and this
included paintings, assemblages, collages, and moveable sculpture, both
electronic and hand driven. After the Bi-centennial, many of the pieces
were then shipped to the Face Gallery in New York City and received critical
acclaim.
Of his technique, he has explained that he first creates a cardboard
model and then works from there, often making it life size. He is much
more interested in variations of shape and form rather than color.
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