E R N E S T T R O VA: VISIONARY Museum of Art - DeLand October 14, 2016 - Januar y 8, 2017
Acknowledgments From his self-taught beginnings in 1946, to his present status as a sculptor of originality and force, Ernest Trova’s art has demonstrated an unquestionable continuity. While his early efforts were influenced by Dubuffet and DeKooning, he found his own artistic identity in the early 60’s in the series “Study/Falling Man” which he developed in paintings, graphics, assemblage and sculpture for more than ten years. In the 1970’s he shifted his primary focus to a new direction – large scale geometric constructions in steel. In the 80’s he once again returned, with an enriched vision, to the theme of the “Falling Man” by undertaking the synthesis of figuration and construction into a singular sculptural concept. On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Art – DeLand, I would like to thank the many individuals who assisted in the organization and presentation of this exhibition. For his collaboration in the planning and the development of this show, I would like to express my appreciation to Rock J. Walker, Guest Curator. I would especially like to thank Lara H. Block for her cooperation and access to the extensive Trova collection. In addition, I am grateful to the private collectors and galleries who have so generously loaned pieces to this exhibition. The following donors and businesses merit special appreciation for their support of this presentation and their commitment to this year’s exhibition schedule: The Estate of Charles Almand, Dennis Aylward, Dr. Bruce Bigman and Carolyn Bigman, Samuel and Donna Blatt, Bill and Terri Booth, Earl and Patti Colvard, Sal Cristofano and Laura Gosper, Manny De La Vega, Dr. Wayne Dickson and Jewel Dickson, Robert Dorian and Linda Colvard Dorian, Lee and Susan Downer, Timothy Eaton, LaVerda Felton, Dr. Deborah and Lee Goldring, Christie G. Harris, John and Karen Horn, Ed Jackson and Pat Heller-Jackson, Betty Drees Johnson, Ray and Betty Johnson, Barney and Linda Lane, Tim and Mary Jeanne Ludwig, Van and Frances Massey, Walter and Robin May, Beth and Greg Milliken, Linda Pinto, Dagny and Tommy Robertson, Stephen and Claudia Roth, Patricia Schwarze, Fred and Jeanne Staloff, Harry Sugarman, Judith Thompson, Dr. Ian Williams and Dr. Nancy Hutson, Dr. John Wilton and Nancy Wilton, Dorothy M. Gillespie Foundation, Daytona Auto Mall, DeLand Breakfast Rotary, DeLand Fall Festival of the Arts, DeLand Rotary Club, Inc., Boulevard Tire Center, Collaborative WEALTH, E.O. Painter Printing Company, Faith Hope & Charity, Krewe Nouveau, Fleishel Financial Associates, Lane Insurance, Inc., Lacey Family Charitable Trust, Mainstreet Community Bank, Massey Services, Inc., Museum Guild, Publix Supermarket Charities, United Parachute Technologies, West Volusia Beacon, W. W. Gay Mechanical Contractor, Inc., State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the County of Volusia. I would like to recognize our Museum’s Board of Trustees led by Judy Thompson, President, for their support in enabling the Staff to realize it ambitious exhibition program. Finally I would like to praise my Staff who provided indispensable assistance in research, public relations and routine curatorial chores, as well as valued consultation. George S. Bolge, Chief Executive Officer Museum of Art - DeLand, Florida Falling Man Manscapes, 1969 Ten colored serigraphs, 28” x 28” On loan from Rock J. Walker / Walker Fine Art
Ernest Trova: Visionar y
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The chronicle of Trova’s painting and sculpture, its surprising morphological changes over the years, is very much an ongoing exploration of themes and variations. His work was an attempt to create a new form, a continuous work in progress. Each piece, or small groups of pieces, might be read as independent units, but they always pertained to that larger work – an oeuvre in the true sense – that would engage the artist’s working life, though without his knowledge of the outcome. It was primarily when Trova hit upon his scheme of the “Falling Man,” an everyman for the technological age, did he discover that major theme and method of approach which provided a necessary focus for his talents and his investigations. For a decade or more, Trova restlessly developed this theme in exploratory ways that would enlarge his vision of beleaguered man in the modern age. As an artist of his time, Trova was influenced by new materials, new technology and the pervasive quality of scientific thought. All sorts of forms and materials, once associated only with non-artistic activities, became part of this contemporary artist’s language. Plans, diagrams, engineering drawings, and factual notations, are all translated into new forms and given new meanings. Trova has brought into being a kind of “nonfunctional machinStudy/Falling Man (Double Figures) ery.” 1986, polished bronze 7 3/4” x 4 1/4” x 3 1/4” On loan from Rock J. Walker / Walker Fine Art
His paintings and prints are like diagrams or patterns for some kind of mysterious activity – neat, impersonal, most explicit, with the competent dehumanization we associate with machine performance. Sometimes the figures are headless; often they are without arms; always they are indistinguishable one from another. We seem to be given a puzzling kind of information in such a work; it is a pattern for action we do not understand. It is certainly not easy to isolate or define the specific symbolism of such work, but it seems to be a disturbing commentary on an energetic and constructive part of our experience. Trova’s sculpture is committed to the contemporary scene. He has created kinetic sculptures, tried his hand at the newer materials, adapted found objects, and has created impressive large-scale sculptures for corporate patrons and public parks. Trova’s sculpture is, then, a body of work as authentically contemporary in its achievements as any that has been produced in America over the past three or four decades. His “Falling Man” theme inevitably recalls the myth of Icarus, the man who dared a technological breakthrough – flight – and failed, falling from the sky. Trova’s sleek walking figures strongly recall the simplicity and posture of the somewhat androgynous statuettes found in Egyptian tombs from the reigns of Akhenaten and Tutankhaman. The physical anonymity suggests that man in the mass, in the parade of his generations on the earth, is largely identifiable by his dress, his emblems of rank and the tools of his profession. Trova’s use of chrome-plated bronze and stainless steel in his “Falling Man” sculpture tends to confirm one’s sense of the thematic model as one of faceless embodiment, stressing the transcience of man’s adventure in life – an adventure in which few men distinguish themselves. That philosophical reading seems mirrored in the materials themselves - materials which respond to and reflect the accidents of light and time and movement in the environment in which the sculpture is placed. The sharply defined figure in outline supplies one aspect of the formal tension in these sculptures as the reflected light dissolves the sense of the sculpture’s mass and density. The resulting optical effect is one of the most innovative features of Trova’s “Falling Man” works, a formal choice or device that gives the sculpture a sense of lightness, movement and immateriality that strikes one as a fleeting commentary on the temporal nature of the human condition. Time and the journey are subtle but persuasive metaphors in the continuum of Trova’s work. The past and the present have their place there. “Man is planted in a patch of world history,” Trova once commented: a statement that recognizes that history, in all its complexity, converges on the present in all its insistent immediacy. That sense of man’s fate in the mix of time may be part of the message to be drawn from Trova’s still-continuing journey. G.S.B.
Catalogue The annual Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Awards were held June 6, 2016, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Among the winners of the Ernest Trova designed statuettes was Recording Artist Beyoncé, winner of the 2016 Fashion Award, designed by Trova for the CFDA in 1981. (Courtesy of Friedland Art, Inc.) Left, Ernest Trova (1927 - 2009), c.1960 Right, Recording Artist Beyoncé, 2016 Cover, Standing Figure 2, 1986, stainless steel 14 1/2” x 4 1/4” x 4 1/2” On loan from Rock J. Walker Walker Fine Art On loan from Rock J. Walker / Walker Fine Art Before Falling Man, 1961, oil, graphite on canvas, 12” x 12” Cut Standing Falling Man on Sphere, 1986, stainless steel, 6” x 6” x 16” Double Flapman, 1983, Stainless steel, 82” x 34” x 29.25” Falling Man Manscapes I, 1969, multi-color serigraph on paper, 28” x 28” Falling Man Manscapes II, 1969, multi-color serigraph on paper, 28” x 28” Falling Man Manscapes III, 1969, multi-color serigraph on paper, 28” x 28” Falling Man Manscapes VII, 1969, multi-color serigraph on paper, 28” x 28” Falling Man Manscapes VIII, 1969, multi-color serigraph on paper, 28” x 28” Falling Man Manscapes X, 1969, multi-color serigraph on paper, 28” x 28” Flowing Man, 1972, stainless steel, 13.5 x 39 x 7” Mickey Mouse World Map, 1968, multi-color serigraph on paper, 29” x 23” Profile Canto #4, 1987, stainless steel, bronze and lacquer, 12.5” x 14” x 8.75” Pyramid Figure, 1986, stainless steel, 18” x 20” x 21” Seated Figure I, 1986, bronze (Gold Plated), 14” x 10” x 15 “ Seated Figure II, 1988, stainless steel, 24” x 48” x 60” Standing Falling Man with Horizontal Cuts on Sphere (Prototype), 2007, stainless steel, 5” x 5” x 18” Standing Falling Man with Sidecuts, 2009, ink drawing, 30” x 60” Standing Figure 2, 1986, stainless steel, 14 1/2 “ x 4 1/4 “ x 4 1/2 “ Standing Figure 2, 1986, stainless steel, 28” x 8” x 8” Standing Figure 2, 1986, stainless steel, 73” x 19.5” x 19.5” Standing Figure with Red Cube, 1986, stainless Steel, 26 ¼” x 6 ¾” x 8 ¼” Study, Friend Series (Red Hat), 1999, mixed, Casein, Latex/Board, 35” x 27” Study/Falling Man (Double Figures), 1986, polished bronze, 7 3/4” x 4 1/4” x 3 1/4” Study/Falling Man (Figure in Sphere), 1986, stainless steel, 15” x 26” x 14.5” Walking Figure 2, 1986, stainless steel, 28” x 13” x 7 1/2” Walking Figure 3, 1986, bronze, 30.75” x 13.5” x 7.5” Walking Figure 3, 1986, bronze, 30.75” x 13.5” x 7.5”
On loan from Friedland Art, Inc. AWF #3, 1986, stainless steel, 78” x 34 3/8” x 27” Backwrap Figure, 1982, stainless steel, 32 ½” x 13 3/4 x 8” Circle Figure, 1985, stainless steel, 17.5” x 11.25” x 4.5” Double Figures, undated, bronze, 7.75” x 4.25” x 3.25” Double Flapman, 1986, stainless steel, 28.25” x 10” x 6.5” Figure with Cut Circle, 1986, bronze, 8” x 6.25” x 2.5” Figures in Frame, undated, bronze, 12.25” x 10.75” x 4” Gox #3, 1974 - 76, stainless steel, 108” x 61” x 20” Man with Fur Hat, 1961, assemblage in Mixed media 96” x 48” New Cut Figure #3, 1985, stainless steel, 28.25” x 14x4.75” Overhead Figure, 1984 - 85, stainless steel, 18” x 6” x 5” Profile Canto, 1987, stainless steel and corten steel, 11” x 15.25” x 3” Radial Hinge Figure #2, 1986, stainless steel, 13.5” x 3.75” x 3.75” Radical Cut Figure, 1976, stainless steel, 17 ¾” x 6” x 4 ½” Seated Figure I, 1986, stainless steel, 15” x 18” x 5” Seated Figure II, 1988, stainless steel, 15” x 16.25” x 10” Seated Figure V, 1990, stainless steel, 7” x 10” x 4.75” Standing Wrapman, 1986, stainless steel, 32” x 7” x 7” Study/Falling Man (Backwrap Figure), 1982, stainless steel, 86” x 24” x 3” Study/Falling Man (Overhead Figure), 1984 - 85, stainless steel, 82” x 20” x 19” Study/Falling Man (Seated Figure 1), 1986, stainless steel, 45.25” x 53.5” x 14.25” Walking Jackman, undated, stainless steel, 17.75” x 23.5” x 21” On loan from the Boca Raton Museum of Art Study of Falling Man (Circle Figure), 1985, stainless steel, 76” x 48” x 19” Study of Falling Man (Walking Man), 1964, stainless steel, 60” x 13” x 28” On loan from Carla Gettemeier Flowing Man, 1972, stainless steel, 6 3/4” x 19 1/2” x 3 1/2”, On loan from Dr. Michael S. Zola, DMD Everything Follows Everything, 1986, sculpture bronze, 10” x 5” x 2”
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