(#87) WINGS:

Edition of 2754 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300,
26 copies are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and five sets are signed as progressives.

April 2, 1980 Four colors 16-1/4" x 24"

Client: Tom Schmidt,
The Pacific Film Archive,
University of California Art Museum,
2625 Durant Avenue, Berkeley CA 94720.
Telephone (510) 642-1413 A-Z: Artist's own use

Influence: Wilhelm Deffke & Carl Ernst Hinkefuss, "Wilhelmwerk"

Death from above. Death swooping down out of the air as quick as a lightning bolt and just as random. Not one of them knew what he was doing. They didn't even wear parachutes. Half-trained, sent off in machines made of spit and baling wire, they murdered one another with the single-minded courtesy of boys. When they killed a famous one from the other side they'd fly over and drop bouquets of flowers.

The men on the ground shot at all of them, indiscriminately, scarcely ever scoring a hit. War on the ground, war on the water, and now the pure ether itself was stained with blood. A ruined machine twisting down with the grace of a falling leaf to hit the ground in an Autumn litter of thousands and millions of dun leaves, swept up and burned in a funeral pyre of shattered dreams and ruined lives and lonely, heartbroken women.

Five percent of the human race was killed in World War One, and the Great Influenza Epidemic that followed carried off another ten percent. Not a man, woman or child on the face of the Earth escaped infection. But, Round Two was just around the corner and in the meanwhile Hollywood turned these tragic heroes into grist for the mill. If you've got a lemon, make lemonade.