Jugglers edition complete

Jugglers, a 1957 Flora woodcut, was recently editioned at Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress, in Knoxville. The 50 prints, struck from the original artist's block, will be offered for sale by Jim Flora Art LLC in about a month. YH printed Railroad Town in 2006/2007, and plans to produce several more Flora relief prints over the next two years.

A vintage artist's print of this work was reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora.

At last -- Spring!

It's been a long time comin' here in Minnesota -- at last I can milk the cow, play some records and mow the lawn! Ah, yes -- but it still drizzles. Hence the umbrella. And cigar.

Saturday Evening Post advertising promotional booklet, 1955.

Faded Line launches Flora

The Colorado-based Faded Line Clothing Co. has launched their Flora apparel series. Four different Flora images printed on sixteen shirts (and an infant's onesie) can be viewed and purchased at the FLC Flora page.

The images (licensed from Jim Flora Art LLC) are titled "Jived" (from the 1954 Primer for Prophets series); "Robot Guy" (detail from July 1956 Research & Engineering magazine cover); "Drummer" (1993 unpublished pen & ink of Gene Krupa); and "Hot Notes" (1941 detail from Shillito's Department Store circular).

We don't know plans for FLC's retail roll-out, but for now this snug armor can be scored with a few mouse-clicks at the store's site.

predator train

early 1940s pencil sketch adapted for
Robert Lowry short story "The Monkey Cane,"
appearing in Gup (Little Man Press, 1942)

bacchanal bird

Detail, Mme Tellier's Picnic, pen & ink, 1995

Pishtosh, Bullwash & Wimple

Pishtosh, Bullwash & Wimple, published in 1972 (back cover above), was Flora's 12th children's book, and first for Atheneum. His first eleven were published by Harcourt Brace, under legendary kid-lit editor Margaret McElderry. In 1971, after a quarter-century with the company, McElderry was remaindered by Harcourt. According to Publisher's Weekly:

After editing many Newbery and Caldecott Medal and Honor winners (including the Newbery and Caldecott Medals together, in 1952), McElderry was asked to take early retirement, a request that stunned her. "When I asked why, I was told that the wave of the future had passed me by," she says. "That was the exact wording, and it was a real slap in the face."

Obviously, many others thought otherwise, as McElderry soon received job offers from 12 publishers. The winner was Atheneum, where she launched her own line of books. In her words, "My imprint was given to me as an honor, and it was, since it was the first children's book imprint to have a person's name attached to it."

One of the authors she lured from Harcourt was Flora, who wrote and illustrated six books for McElderry's new imprint.

Chioggia

Detail, Chioggia, early 1960s, acrylic

Sundazed blasts off with Flora

Sundazed Records, one of the world's foremost boutique rock reissue labels, offers a new limited edition T-shirt emblazoned with a Jim Flora space-age pan-galactic starship.

The original 1958 illustration (from the back of a Billy Mure LP) was black & white. Sundazed offers two colorized editions, the mustardy-cheesey:

And the aqua & salmon tinted:

William Bernal

Producer/writer Bill Bernal was a dear friend of Jim Flora. In an autobiographical reminiscence penned in 1987, Flora recalled an intercession by Bernal that upscaled one of the artist's less successful children's books:

In 1961 Leopold, the See-through Crumbpicker was published. It did not make much of a splash. It was illustrated differently than my other books and that may have been a mistake. I tried to see and do the illustrations as a child would see and do them. The story is about Leopold, an invisible animal, who likes Minerva, a little girl who has lost her two front teeth. When she eats cookies, she makes a lot of crumbs and Leopold loves crumbs. He follows Minerva to school one day and proceeds to get into a lot of trouble. This is followed by a mad chase through town until he is arrested and finally made visible. I thought it was a good story even though it didn't sell well. Once again, good fortune intervened in the shape of Bill Bernal, an independent film producer. He liked Leopold very much and thought it would make a fine short film. He, too, knew Gene Deitch who had made my first film [ed.: The Fabulous Firework Family] and who now lived in Czechoslovakia where he was in charge of the government's animation studios. Bill commissioned Gene to make the film and he turned out a very smart and lively seven-minute film. Book sales picked up and the film is still available from Weston Woods, who distributes it to schools and libraries.

Deitch dropped us a note and three jpgs in July 2006:

I recently came across my original storyboard plus three original color studies [see above] for our production of Leopold, The See-Through Crumbpicker. The color studies were made by Jim personally. They are not actual illustrations from the book. Jim made them as guides for our animators.

Now gawk at this safe-driving cartoon from the 1950s, Stop Driving Us Crazy!, written by Bernal, animated in classic UPA style, and starring — Martians.

The Incredible Flutist

UPDATE 4/25: Two prints sold. Now available via JimFlora.com.

The Incredible Flutist is an uncirculated 1953-54 record cover illustration by Flora that was intended for a 7-inch RCA Victor EP. Jim Flora Art LLC is offering two fine art prints on eBay at a launch price.

According to a purchase order discovered in the Flora archives, the illustration was commissioned by RCA in late 1953, but there's no indication the work was finished, accepted, or used on a commercially released EP. This illustration has not previously been published or offered in any form. An alternate version appeared in The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora.

Only 20 numbered prints of this illustration have been produced. After the two launch prints are sold, prices will increase on edition prints sold at JimFlora.com.