Wings (1927) is a silent film starring Charles Rogers and Richard Arlen as a pair of World War I fighter pilots who are rivals for the love of the same girl, played by Hollywood starlet Clara Bow. Wings is a cinematic milestone for a number of reasons, not least the fact that it was the first ever winner of the Best Picture Oscar at the newly inaugurated Academy Awards. It is also renowned for its spectacular aerial photography of fighter planes in action, and for the brilliance of its technical trickery: one celebrated sequence features a single unbroken shot tracking through a series of crowded tables in the Café de Paris, for which the camera was mounted on a specially designed boom. By no means least, Wings is noted for its groundbreaking approach to sexuality, being one of the first Hollywood movies to feature male and female nudity, and for its queer coding. Seated at one of the café tables in that noted tracking shot is a same-sex female couple caressing one another’s faces; and famously, when Rogers’s character dies, Arlen kisses him tenderly on the mouth, a moment which - interpretations vary - has been hailed as cinema’s first gay kiss. The director, William A Wellman, was a prolific filmmaker whose later work included the original version of A Star is Born (1937), Beau Geste (1939), and The High and the Mighty (1954).

Framed Dimensions: 352mm x 279mm (Unframed: 178mm x 255mm)

Ink and wash on 90gsm Daler Bockingford watercolour paper
Glazed, mounted and framed

Supplied with signed letter of authenticity from Barnaby.

Please note, this is the original artwork by Barnaby. It is unique and not a reproduction.