St. Louis native Ernest Trova is best known for his Falling Man series, which he worked on from 1964 until his death in 2009. Forged in the belief that "man is first of all an imperfect (or) fallen creature," the series encompassed themes ranging from technical pride and man's addiction to speed to the representation of the body without organs. In Falling Man/Study (Wrapped Manscape Figure), created in 1984, a large-scale Falling Man is wrapped from head to toe with a horizontal Falling Man, reinforcing self-identification and Trova's view of man as "the center of all things." The work's references extend from Egyptian and Greek standing figures through Renaissance statuary to pop and comic book action figures, and its funerary figurative form stands upright as a high-tech mummy configured like a toy robot, with the pose of a machine that no longer knows it is a living being, or vice versa. Trova's gift of forty works to St. Louis County helped bring Laumeier Sculpture Park to life in 1976, and many of those works are displayed throughout the park and region.