Man Slopping Pigs

Here follows an excerpt from the Offbeat Nova website as written by Matt Eng:

The Beyer family is no stranger to Northern Virginia. Don Beyer currently serves as a U.S. Representative for Virginia’s 8th congressional district in the heart of Alexandria, Falls Church, and Arlington. He previously served as the 36th Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1998 and the United States Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein after that, from 2009 to 2013.

Before Don Beyer began his storied political career, Beyer graduated from college and began working at his father’s Volvo dealership. He and his brother eventually bought the dealership from his father, expanding to nine in the Northern Virginia region. Back in the early 1980s, Don decided to place a sculpture at the front of his Volvo dealership in Falls Church. He was inspired by the work of his uncle, Richard Beyer, a World War II veteran of the Battle of the Bulge who abandoned a career with Boeing to pursue his passion of art and sculpture on the West Coast. Beyer was known for his overly eccentric art pieces, including an image of a man grabbing the breasts of a fish in Des Moines, Washington.

After talking it over with his uncle, Don decided to commission a sculpture as an important landmark to the city. He ultimately chose a sculpture of a man feeding pigs, inspired by Richard’s family farm in McLean. The official title of the piece is “Man Slopping Pigs.” The statue was dedicated in a small ceremony on May 6, 1984. The statue is made of wood and dipped in cast aluminum.

The sculpture depicts a man feeding five pigs at a trough. The man’s tongue appears to be sticking out as he is feeding the hogs. Although the sculpture is meant to merely represent a fondness for Richard’s childhood growing up on a farm near Washington, D.C., Richard Beyer’s personal sculpture website database notes in their description of the piece that it may actually represent “five bureaucrats at the government trough.”

The statue sits on the on the corner of Beyer’s Volvo dealership today on West Broad Street in Falls Church, VA. Directly across from it at the Beyers’ KIA dealership sits another Richard Beyer original with a far more interesting origin. Unveiled at its present location on Gordons Street, “Man Eating Dog Food” depicts a life-sized man sitting down, eating what appears to be dog food from a can. Beyer described it as “our retirement plan,” whatever that means. Don’t ask Don Beyer, he doesn’t know or understand it either, apparently. From 2010 to 2012, the statue was placed on the streets of Lake Oswego, Oregon. The statue had obviously mixed reviews amongst the residents of Lake Oswego, with some loving It, while others simply confused by its intention. Why? Not only is the man eating dog food, he has a tail growing out of his backside as well.

The statue made its way to the East Coast in 2014, and was unveiled opposite Beyer’s other sculpture as a posthumous tribute to the renowned artist. Richard Beyer died in 2012. Some news articles speculate that the sculpture was inspired by the Great Depression and Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Others owe it to the wonderfully odd mind of Richard Beyer himself.

Either way, these two sculptures have made an impact on the Falls Church community and the Beyer family. Dan Beyer, grandson of Richard, was so inspired that he created two large bronze feet coming out the ground in front of the Beyers’ Alexandria, Virginia, Subaru location.

Once again, we ask why? I think that will be left as a Beyer family secret. For us, we can drive by and simply enjoy the eccentric art installations.