Party Animals

Detail of untitled 1940s tempera casually referred to as "Tenement K," which contains quite a few enigmatic and disturbing tenants. The original work is owned by Keith McAllister, who extracted the above celebratory duo to produce a holiday card titled "Party Animals." No better way to ring in seasonal festivities than a curiously sinister Flora tableau.

Flora, Raymond and Takashi

We received a photo of this festive tableau from our good friend (and devoted Floraphile) in Japan, Takashi Okada. The greeting card, a vintage artifact ca. 1944, was purchased by Takashi from the Flora collection a few years ago.

Behind the card sits a demo of Takashi's forthcoming Raymond Scott Songbook, a 2-cd collection of rare Scott archival recordings and new cover versions by a variety of artists. Positioned to the right is a figurine of Raymond Scott, manufactured by PressPop of Japan in commemoration of the Scott centennial in 2008.

"visual pop in an off-kilter story"

Pamela Paul in the New York Times reviews Enchanted Lion Books' new reprint of Flora's Kangaroo for Christmas:

Kangaroo for Christmas offered joy of an entirely different sort to the Sallys and Bobbys of the Mad Men era. First published in 1962, the story of little Kathryn’s astonishing gift from her Uncle Dingo showcases the marvelous period illustration of James Flora, a giant among midcentury commercial artists. Working in riotous bursts of carnation pink and deep teal, Flora adds visual pop to an off-kilter story that hardly needs it, but is gloriously zanier for it all the same.

Christmas, 1942

Christmas greetings Flora-style from Columbia/Okeh Records. Above: cover of the December 1942 new release flyer from Flora's then-employer. James had not yet risen to the position of art director (he would in 1943); at the time he was just nearing the end of his first year in the art department under the legendary Alex Steinweiss.

Merry Flora Christmas 2008

hand-printed card, early 1940s

Merry Flora Christmas 2007

montage by IC using early 1950s Flora details

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Merry Saturnalia, Happy Festivus—whatever.

The deviltry is in the details

We've posted several complete Flora works below. However, one mission of this blog is to post details of Flora's complex artistic madscapes. There are several reasons, not the least being our desire to spark surprise when we publish complete works in future books. Details serve as teasers.

However, in a Flora mise-en-scène the details are "complete" works unto themselves. Isolating figures provides an opportunity for closer scrutiny. A typical image-dense Flora montage so overwhelms the eyes it's easy to overlook nuance. The gremlins are almost subliminal.


Here's a mere 2" x 5" patch from a 13" x 10" early 1950s untitled Christmas montage. This little tableau represents one-twelfth of the entire work (which is featured in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora).

The original montage was adapted for a Park East magazine cover in December 1952.