Drawings

Top Man [study]

Type: Drawings(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1931
Accession number: 2004.8
Maker: Walt Kuhn(Opens in new tab) (American, 1880–1949)
Dimensions: 22 x 11 in. (55.9 x 27.9 cm.)
Medium: watercolor and graphite on paper
Description: Born in Brooklyn, New York, Walt Kuhn began his artistic career as an illustrator. After studying at the Royal Academy in Munich, he returned to New York where he continued to work for magazines, while gradually becoming more involved with painting. He befriended the members of "The Eight" and, along with Arthur B. Davies, was a key figure organizing the 1913 Armory Show, widely regarded as the event that introduced European modernism to the United States. By the 1940s he was purportedly described by Pablo Picasso as "the strongest painter in the U.S.A." Although Kuhn was an accomplished landscape and still-life painter, he is best known for his portraits of circus and vaudeville performers - a subject he did not engage until the 1920s. His models often were professional performers and the subject of the watercolor Top Man is the trapeze artist Vittorio Falconi. As the top man, Falconi was responsible for planning the group's aerial feats and controlling the timing of each element of the performance. During the act, he would hang by his knees from the trapeze and catch the other performers as they left the fly bar. Portrayed by Kuhn in the traditional costume of his profession, he stands in front of a plain dark background, exhibiting his muscular arms, broad hands, and monumental chest. His expression, however, is pensive and introspective, suggesting an inner life of seriousness and individualism. Kuhn was a stern self-critic who destroyed far more of his work than he kept. His daughter estimated that in one summer her father retained only five out of twenty-five drawings he made per day, and she frequently heard the sound of ripping paper coming from his studio. The fact that Kuhn kept his watercolor Top Man attests to his belief in the piece as an accomplished example of his work. The watercolor is inscribed in its margin, "Study for 'Top Man' 1931," verifying the direct relationship between the drawing and the oil painting Top Man in the Huntington's collection - a painting Kuhn repeatedly referred to as one of his best. His vision for the composition "was to have that gorilla grow out of the comparatively delicate and perhaps effeminate lower part . . . signifying the alleged grace of the circus." Without foregoing the sense of the model's strength and stoicism, the watercolor offers a less brutal, more sensitive portrayal of the acrobat, and records an important early stage in the artist's development of his idea.
Credit: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Purchased with funds fom Francis Brody, Kelvin Davis, and the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation
Department: American Art
Find out more: View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)

Label text

Walt Kuhn's monumental oil painting of Vittorio Falconi (directly to the left) emphasized the extremely muscular upper body that made the trapeze artist a great "top man." The attention Kuhn paid to his arms, shoulders, and chest makes his head and legs appear slightly out of proportion. In this watercolor and graphite study, however, Kuhn seems to have beem interested in portraying Falconi's personality by more fully developing his facial features, particularly his heavily lidded eyes, to give a sense of the psychological impact of the life-and-death responsibility Falconi had for his fellow performers. In the study, Kuhn also made Falconi's body slightly smaller, further accentuating the precariousness of his dangerous work high above circus crowds.

Top Man [study]

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