Directed by Victor Fleming / Screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf

Dramatisations of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz have been with us almost as long as the book itself. A successful 1902 Broadway musical was followed by half a dozen silent films (including a 1925 version in which the Tin Man was played by a young Oliver Hardy, a year before he began his partnership with Stan Laurel). Sweeping them all aside was MGM’s lavish 1939 film musical, a milestone in the career of Victor Fleming, who in that year alone directed not one but two of Hollywood’s all-time classics. The other, Gone With the Wind, was an instant blockbuster, sweeping the Academy Awards and outselling every other film of 1939. Despite receiving two Oscars of its own, The Wizard of Oz was something of a slow burner. It wasn’t until a re-release ten years later that it finally recouped its budget, and it was the American TV premiere in 1956, seen by an estimated audience of 34 million, that has been credited with cementing the film’s reputation as a cornerstone of popular culture. The unforgettable switch from monochrome to technicolor as Dorothy enters the magical land of Oz, and the rich resonances of her adventures with the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, have become the stuff of legend. Judy Garland’s emotive performance of ‘Over the Rainbow’, a song that was nearly cut from the film but went on to bag one of those Oscars, has become a defining moment of cinema; and Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West (‘I’ll get you, my pretty!’) is one of the finest screen villains of them all.

Framed Dimensions: 330mm x 410mm

Acrylic on 300gsm Arches oil paper
Glazed, mounted and framed

Supplied with signed letter of authenticity from Barnaby.