Ernest Trova

A self-trained American surrealist and pop art painter and sculptor, Trova was born in St. Louis. Best known for his signature images and figures, the Falling Man, Trova considered his entire output a single “work in progress.” Trova used classic American comic character toys in some of his pieces because he admired their surrealism. He began as a painter, progressing through three-dimensional constructions to his mature medium, sculpture. Trova’s figures function as metaphorical signs of rational man and his journey through life. These works embrace with quiet dignity and infinite variations and adaptations, the artist’s lifelong investigation of man’s movement through life, both individual and collective.

​Trova’s gift of forty of his works led to the opening of St. Louis County, Missouri’s internationally renowned Laumeier Sculpture Park. With his “Falling Man” series of images and figures, Ernest Trova created one of the defining artistic images of his career, part classical, part futuristic figure.