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.

Rowayton Creature Tableau (new print)

Our latest Jim Flora limited edition fine art print launches today. We've dubbed the untitled, undated black and white work Rowayton Creature Tableau because of the strange figures populating the streets of this seaside Connecticut village (the artist's adopted hometown). The previously uncirculated and unpublished pen & ink with watercolor drawing was discovered in the artist's collection. We've analyzed the technique and determined that it reflects the 1970s style of caricature commonly found in Flora's children's books of that decade.

Flora lived in Rowayton from the mid-1940s to his death in 1998. Over the years he rendered scenes from the town dozens of times (see our recently released Bell Island at Night print) in a variety of media. The creature tableau is one of his more playful portraits of the town.

Rowayton Creature Tableau has been issued in a numbered, limited edition of 25 prints at a price of $150 (+s/h) each. Prices will increase as the edition sells down.

Leonardo, Lorenzo and Verrocchio

Pen & ink, 1992, discovered in sketchpad. Like most Flora works of the 1990s, this cityscape has never been published or publicly viewed.

Bell Island at Night (new print)

JimFlora.com has released a new fine art print. The panoramic Bell Island at Night was adapted from a 1968 tempera in which Flora provided a surreal nocturnal impression of his neighbors and neighborhood. Bell Island is part of Rowayton CT, and the Flora family lived on the island at 7 St. James from the late 1940s to Flora's death in 1998.

The archival-quality fine art print has been released in an edition of 30 at a launch price of $160. As with all our Flora fine art prints, prices increase as the edition sells down. The image area is 10-1/2" high x 17-1/2" wide and centered on an untrimmed 13" x 19" sheet.

Bell Island at Night

We return from a fine art print hiatus with our first new work of 2011: Bell Island at Night, a 1968 tempera in which Flora provides a surreal nocturnal impression of his neighbors. Bell Island is part of Rowayton (which in turn is part of Norwalk, CT), and the Flora family lived on the island at 7 St. James from the late 1940s to Flora's death in 1998. Our newest fine art print will be launched in an edition of 30 in the next week or two. We'll re-post this info upon launch. The print is currently in the final proofing stages.

Henry Ford in Cetara

Henry Ford in Cetara, rough pencil drawing found in 1991 sketchpad. Cetara is in Italy. There's no refined sketches and no indication the sketch was developed into a finished work.

Flora traveled widely and artfully chronicled his globetrotting. This sketchbook contains no other images of Italy, but does contain a letter handwritten in a Mexican hospital while Flora was being treated for "over medication and loss of blood." On the preceding page was a journal entry titled "A Bum Week in Guadalajara."

The faint lines in the background are from a drawing on the reverse side of the paper.

Mexican cityscape (1967)

Untitled Mexican motif, pen and ink (or tempera) on paper, 1967. The work was reproduced in our most recent book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora.

Broadway Celebrates the Big Apple

Jim Flora's 1954 cosmopolitan woodcut, Manhattan, has been adapted for the cover of a new music folio. Broadway Celebrates The Big Apple: Over 100 Years of Show Tunes About New York City, was launched January 5 by Alfred Publishing Co. Cary Ginell, Associate Editor for Popular Music at Alfred, is a Flora fan who discussed image licensing with us last year. After reviewing samples, Ginell deemed the Manhattan cityscape ideally suited for this developing project.

The book contains piano-vocal-chord charts for 42 Tin Pan Alley classics. As the title suggests, the repertoire covers over a century: from 1904 ("Give My Regards to Broadway") to 2006 ("Another Saturday Night in New York)". The interim years are represented by "Harlem Serenade" (1937), "Give It Back to the Indians" (1939), "Lounging at the Waldorf" (1978), "Welcome to Brooklyn" (1993), and dozens more.

Broadway Celebrates the Big Apple is available now from Alfred online, or from Amazon (shipping in February).

Manhattan limited edition fine art prints are available, now in two color versions: red and blue.

Jackson Square

One of a dozen woodcuts by Flora depicting New Orleans landmarks, historical vignettes, and social settings. The series was commissioned around 1940 by the Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati for their Agency Bulletin. The whereabouts of the original blocks are unknown.

At the time, having recently completed studies at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Flora was a struggling freelancer. "Soft-spoken and unassuming," the Bulletin proclaimed, "James happens to be the sort of artist who works away eight or ten hours a day on assignments, and then goes home to cut away on another woodblock until early morning, just to keep his hand in."

Years later, Flora told interviewer Angelynn Grant, "They were my idea of what New Orleans looked like even though I'd never been there."

HT: D. Gorton for the aerial recognition.

Paradises Lost

"Paradises Lost," illustration
Venture: The Traveler's World
June 1964 (premiere issue)

Thanks to Mike Baehr of Fantagraphics.

Bridgeport

Bridgeport, tempera on paper, early 1960s

Manhattan limited edition print

Jim Flora Art LLC has produced a limited-edition, archival-quality fine art print of a 1954 Jim Flora hand-tinted woodcut entitled Manhattan. The cityscape depicts New York in its 1950s glory, including a number of gotham landmarks such as the Empire State Building, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Madison Square Garden, the Statue of Liberty, famous theaters and legendary musical bistros, Washington Square arch, subways, taxis, horse-drawn carriages and tourists.

Only twenty-five (25) prints of Manhattan were produced for this edition. The first five prints (#21/25 thru #25/25) were offered Wednesday on eBay—and sold out in less than two hours. We are now offering #16/25 thru #20/25 at JimFlora.com.

untitled street scene

untitled pen and ink drawing, 1990s, possibly Mexico

Posts about buildings and food

Flora was a failed architecture student. He had to forego a scholarship to the Boston Architectural League in 1933 due to Depression-era financial constraints—he was too tired to attend classes after shifts as a busboy. ("I earned seven dollars a week plus meals and had to work the entire day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This meant that I could not attend classes. Late in October the school said they could no longer hold my scholarship open.")

Throughout his artistic life, many of Flora's iconic illustrations, paintings, and woodcuts displayed an idiosyncratic passion for structures. Above is a slightly edited frontage montage from his 1964 children's book My Friend Charlie.

vintage Flora print now on eBay

Jim Flora Art LLC has listed on eBay a vintage hand-colored relief print of a 1954 Flora woodcut entitled Manhattan. The print was color-filled (with either tempera or watercolor), signed, titled, and matted by the artist.

The cityscape depicts many NYC landmarks, such as the Empire State Building, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the UN, Madison Square Garden, the Statue of Liberty, famous theaters and legendary musical bistros, Washington Square arch, a NY public library lion, subways, taxis, horse-drawn carriages and tourists.

An unknown number of Manhattan prints were gift-wrapped by the artist for gallery sale back in the 1950s. The print being auctioned remains sealed by tape. Several Manhattan prints are in the family collection, but this is the only one which will be auctioned, and there are no immediate plans to sell the remaining prints.

Update 1: Auction drew 24 bids, closed at $1,610.00.

Update 2: Message received. Due to popular demand, we will be issuing a limited edition giclée of this work. People feel nostalgic about New York in the 1950s. Who knew?

Update 3: Like magic: done.

the hazards of city life

That's not what this work is titled. It has no title, and it's a detail from a larger, possibly unpublished pen & ink mid-1950s cityscape. But it's typically, Florifically, curiously sinister. And while alligators don't really live in urban sewers, we have it on good authority that giant gophers burrowed the NYC subway system.