Falling Man Series No. 60
Artist
Ernest Trova
(American, 1927 - 2009)
CultureAmerican
Date1963
MediumLatex paint on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 68 x 68 in. (172.7 x 172.7 cm)
InscribedSigned and dated on reverse, upper right: "TROVA '63 #60"
Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number71.712
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 226
Label TextErnest Trova American (1927-2009) Falling Man (Series No. 60), 1963 Latex on canvas Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.712 Trova introduced his image of "Falling Man" in 1963, in a series of paintings that included the present work. He returned to it in a variety of media, creating a race of armless humanoids-sleek, asexual, "machine-made and mass produced"-that appear to spin endlessly in pinwheel formation. Opinion has varied on the meaning of Trova's enigmatic vision of Everyman in perpetual free-fall. Does it allude to the biblical Fall of Man, or is it a more general symbol of Modern Man as dehumanized victim and faceless statistic? Trova himself suggested an even broader, cosmic view of man "rising above his nature, his environment, his sociopolitical entanglements, his time" only to suffer "an eventual fall into in the inevitable oblivion" of death and extinction. Exhibition History"Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976.
