FLIGHT FORM - 1964
A symmetrical sculpture, Flight Forms resembles an elongated U, which is dominated by the upward thrust of two slender, perpendicular ‘wings’ of bronze. They rise from a wider form that appears to be curved if viewed from the front and undulating if seen from the sides. A tapered rhomboid connects the whole to a pedestal of polished marble or concrete that is wider at its base than its top.
Further scrutiny reveals that the seemingly non-representational sculpture is an abstracted bird – certainly a raptor and, given the context, possibly an eagle. The wider form at the base is its body, while the undulating lines meet at the point of a hooked beak. The perpendicular ‘wings’ are indeed wings but, pointing straight up to the sky and impossibly elongated, they evoke the manmade rather than the natural.
VAN SANT AND THE ROBERT GROSS MONUMENT, FLIGHT FORMS, C. 1964, IN SITU
THE ROBERT GROS MONUMENT, FLIGHT FORMS, C. 1964
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Forest Lawn Memorial Park
1712 S Glendale Ave, Glendale, CA 91205
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1964
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N/A
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Bronze
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7ft tall
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Unknown
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Mrs. Robert E. Gross
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Extant and in good condition in June 2017, as per Google Maps street view.
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TVS digital records.
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Robert Ellsworth Gross died on 3 Sep 1961, aged 64. Flight Form is installed in a low-walled garden at the east end of the Garden of Freedom in Forest LawnMemorial Park, next to the burial site of Walt Disney.
An aerodynamic hybrid of natural and engineered forms, Flight Form aligns with a style that science historian Stuart Leslie has called “Aerospace Modernism.”[1] It is a fitting memorial to the man who was chairman of the Burbank-based Lockheed Aircraft Corporation for almost thirty years. Robert Gross led the corporation through its Skunk Works innovations and World War Two production, guided its post-war move into aerospace technologies, and set it on track to become the largest defense contractor in the United States by the early 1970s.
Unwrapping an additional iconographic layer to the sculpture: the eagle is both an emblem of the United States and an important symbol for early Christianity. Invoking both the earthly power of the Roman Empire and the divine power of Christ, the eagle became the symbol of an ideal leader.
[1] Stuart W. Leslie, Docomomo US, “Southern California’s Aerospace Modernism,” Sept. 28, 2017
