The Panic Is On

The Panic is On, pen & ink, 1990s, unpublished
(No relation to the Nick Travis 1955 LP cover)

"Oldtown"

"Oldtown," pen and ink drawing, late 1930s, unpublished work. Oldtown (or Old Town?) is presumably a neighborhood in Cincinnati, where Flora lived at the time he rendered this drawing. We were unable to locate this community in a rudimentary search on our Google Machine. If any locals have the answer, please leave a comment below. 

anthropomorphic lobsters

Untitled pencil drawings for unknown project,
discovered in 1960s sketchbook

Jim Flora: The First 100 Years

One hundred years ago today, James Royer Flora was born in the quaint village of Bellefontaine, Ohio. Above, possibly making its first public appearance, is the artist's earliest extant work, a pen & ink with pencil (or charcoal) entitled First Steps, dated June 8, 1935, around the time Flora enrolled at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Whether the work is intended to be autobiographical shall forever remain a mystery.

To observe the centennial, we have two exhibits in development, and one or two others under consideration. The first, at a cool Brooklyn club/bistro/gallery called Jalopy, will run from June 13 to August 22. Because the club's decor is largely music-themed, this exhibit will spotlight Flora's album cover art—which also happens to be the focus of our most recent anthology, The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora (published by Fantagraphics in August 2013). On display will be original copies of Flora album covers—some extremely rare—as well as selected offerings from our album cover fine art print catalog.

The second will be a major retrospective of Flora's fine art and commercial illustrations at Silvermine Art Center, in Norwalk, Connecticut. The opening reception takes place September 21, and the exhibit runs for six weeks. Flora and his artist wife Jane, whose Bell Island home was part of greater Norwalk, were members of the Silvermine Guild of Artists, so this exhibit is something of a homecoming. Dozens of rare works will be displayed, along with paintings and original artist prints which have appeared in our four anthologies.

So, to the esteemed Mr. Flora, wherever you are:

the hand as pillow

Untitled pen & ink drawing, 1942 (reproduced in our 

second book, The Curiously Sinister Art of  Jim Flora)

disjointed man

Untitled ink on paper, 1942, first published in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora (2007, Fantagraphics).

Self-Portrait with Cigar

Pen & ink on heavy stock, 1990s, from the archives.
Previously unpublished and uncirculated work.

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.

The Duke and Harry Carney

Previously uncirculated pen and ink from sketchbook, 1995.

From the 1920s to his death in 1974, Duke Ellington saw musicians come and go. Saxophonist/clarinetist Harry Carney (b. Boston, 1910) devoted 46 years to performing and recording with the maestro. The trusty sideman occasionally conducted the orchestra in Duke's absence.

After Ellington's death, Carney was quoted as saying, "This is the worst day of my life. Without Duke I have nothing to live for." Four months later, Carney passed away.

Flora was an admitted "jazz hound." He sketched, drew, painted and illustrated jazz musicians and scenes sporadically throughout his career, often as commercial assignments. However, in the final decade of his life, the retired artist devoted a considerable amount of creative energy drawing and painting portraits of musicians he admired from the 1920s through the 1960s. Scores—perhaps hundreds—of such works are in the Flora archives; most have never been publicly viewed.

We're in the preliminary stages of a Flora jazz exhibition for 2012. Details as plans develop.

Provincetown, July 1957

Provincetown 7/57, pencil drawing from sketchbook

costing you an arm & a leg

Another pencil draft from the 1955 sketchbook we've been featuring the past few weeks. The purpose of this stand-alone drawing is unknown. Other sketches on the same and adjacent pages feature rough panels for a cartoon ad about Proctor toasters; none of those drawings depict a loss of limbs.

miscellaneous sketches

Figures from a mid-1950s sketchbook. The two panels were juxtaposed horizontally, but are stacked here for vertical display. The purpose of the drafts is unknown, and the elements are unrelated to any other sketches in the book.

hieroglyphic montage

Untitled pencil drawing discovered in mid-1960s sketchpad. Theme unknown. The pad included dozens of rough pencil sketches for Flora's 1964 book My Friend Charlie, along with a number of unrelated sketches, mainly architectural, some Mexico-inspired, most incomplete. This work echoes nothing else in the sketchpad, or any other known Flora work.

outside El Centro

Untitled pen & ink, 1994, from sketchpad. Unknown Mexican (presumably) town square.

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.

unfinished dancers

Unfinished pencil and tempera sketch, ca. 1950-51 (Flora's Mexican sojourn), found in artist's notebook. There's no evidence the work was refined or adapted for any other purpose. The ghost image in the background is the bleedthrough of a series of figures on the reverse.

The left figure above has some female attributes, the right some vague echoes of manhood. Regarding the lady, we won't speculate on what's protruding from her butt or clustered in her belly, nor will we venture an opinion on the chopsticks positioned in her crotch.

Celebrities (mini print)

New launch: a miniature (7" x 8") giclée open edition print (at $25/ea.) of a previously unpublished and uncirculated mid-1990s Flora pen & ink drawing. Celebrities portrays anonymous showbiz figures as freakshow caricatures. This is our second open edition, low-cost fine art print; Mambo For Cats was launched last October.

Lobster Pound (1962)

Taking a break from conjuring bonus-limbed mutants and bug-eyed boppers, Flora often sketched maritime culture in his extended backyard. The above untitled pen & ink of a seafood shack was discovered in a travel sketchbook that contained dozens of the artist's impressions of Italy and France, several dated 1962. Back on his "home surf," Flora filled another two dozen pages of the tablet with southern Connecticut shoreline vignettes and briny motifs.