revelry

Every December 31 these guys paint their noses to match their chins and get royally toasted. Must be something to celebrate. But careful—apparently it can turn your teeth grey, or cause you to lose them altogether!

Have a HAPPEE!

will draw for food

"Jim Flora's vacation is over & he could use some new money. Why not buy a drawing now! And make him feel better fast! Telephone Jim Flora at PLaza 5-9832."

Text and images: undated business card, probably shortly after Flora's 1951 return to the US from Mexico. Technically he wasn't on "vacation"—Flora and wife (and two young kids) lived in Taxco for 15 months as artmaking ex-pats. Upon returning, Flora had to hustle for freelance commercial illustration gigs to support his family. Numerous quirky business cards that stylistically reflect the early 1950s are in the family archives.

Railroad Town duet

Detail, Railroad Town, 1951 woodcut. The work in its entirety will be featured with commentary and photos of the original block in our forthcoming book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, scheduled for September 2009 publication. Limited edition oil prints struck from the artist's block are available.

The above twosome (with maracas accompaniment—so it's a trio?) will adorn the cover of my 2009 WFMU fundraiser CD, NJX@NY$!#2 (New Jersey Excitement at New York Prices, Vol. 2), currently in production.

Merry Flora Christmas 2008

hand-printed card, early 1940s

Benny Goodman's clarinet

A celebrity in its own right, brags to the media about Benny's awesome embouchure. Reporter doggedly chronicles sensationalistic account, anticipates major scoop.

Detail, Columbia Records ad, Look magazine, 1943.

The First Five Years

Detail, The First Five Years, acrylic on wood, ca. early 1970s. The second of six horizontal tiers depicting incidents during the artist's childhood. Exactly what these figures represent—good question.

legacy

Part of Flora's is also
part of Columbia's.

little grey village

Spot illustration, Coda, June 1943

WFMU art benefit

WFMU, our favorite free-form, listener-sponsored radio station, is holding a benefit art sale. Participating artists include Cindy Sherman, James Siena, Jad Fair, and others. The only deceased contributing artist is Jim Flora, whose 1955 Mambo For Cats LP cover Barbara and I adapted for this limited edition fine art print. The edition of 15 was donated; all proceeds from sales benefit non-profit WFMU.

new Flora screen prints

Two new Jim Flora silk screen prints are available at JimFlora.com. Both are based on untitled, undated temperas from the mid-1960s, which were discovered pages apart in a sketchpad. We informally call this one Entangled Couple:

And this one has been nicknamed Canoe Critters:

Each was produced in a numbered edition of 100 by Aesthetic Apparatus, in Minneapolis, and though the prints are color-matched, they can be purchased separately. (If you want both and use our checkout system, you'll be double-charged for shipping, but we'll reimburse you 50%. To avoid the wasted steps, email us and we'll arrange a direct PayPal transaction.)

AA also produced our Mambo for Cats, Pete Jolly Duo, and Primer for Prophets silk screen prints.

animal trainer

Untitled pen sketch, ca. early-1940s. This image was later adapted (along with more than a dozen seemingly unrelated sketch works) in a 1943 copper-engraved montage entitled Air of Panic. The white vertical skunk stripe is an artifact likely caused by long-term exposure to light; the white area was shielded from exposure while the rest of the paper became yellowed with age.

Hampton Roads (pt 2)

Undetermined media (framed, under glass): print with touch-up, or black tempera, ca. 1968, detail. Previous detail posted on August 20.

The 6.98 Jacket

Flora woodengraving for short story "The 6.98 Jacket" by Robert Lowry, appearing in Hutton Street, published by Little Man Press, Cincinnati, 1940. Print run unknown, but all LMP chapbooks were extremely limited editions between 125 and 400.

The booklet contains 18 meticulous woodcuts by Flora, none of which are known to have survived. If they were left in the custody of Lowry, he likely sold them or used them for kindling. The man was volatile. The Flora archive contains three rare late-1930s Flora lithographs bearing an artless overlay of Little Man promotional copy typed in red Courier. According to Flora's handwritten testimony, "Bob Lowry kept them and defaced them in one of his mad moods."

Some copies of Hutton Street were signed:

One of Lowry's sons told a journalist that neither he nor his brother had any original Flora works, pointing out, "Either my dad sold or gave away all his Flora artwork in the 1970s, or it was left behind in the house on Hutton Street when my grandmother sold it in the '80s and was thrown away by the people who bought it. Or it could have been in my aunt's apartment and destroyed in the fire that killed her in 2004." Our journalist friend cited Lowry's 1970s book-length manuscript Letters To My Psychiatrist, described as "a mishmash of playlets, meditations, and journal." In it, Lowry "refers to holding a garage sale in 1975 or so where he was trying to sell art that Flora and Hugo Valerio did for Little Man Press—with, apparently, no takers. Indiana University's Lilly Library has a letter from Bob to a book collector in the '70s in which he offers a Flora watercolor for sale."

reclining guitar

Guitar in a seductive pose — spot illustration from A-D Gallery invitation to Flora's first New York City exhibition, June 1943.

The Dock at Conakry

Pen & ink on sketch tablet paper, 1995. If you're wondering where Conakry is located, it's on the coast of Wikistan.

Today's Daily Heller

Journalist/author/design historian Steve Heller brings a nicey to the Flora stora on his PRINT Magazine blog. Heller, who penned the 1998 New York Times obit for Flora, also wrote the Foreward in our first book, The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora.

P.S. If the guy on the right at left looks familiar, here's why.

fanastic bike

Detail: undated, untitled, and unidentified commercial illustration
ca. late 1960s/early 1970s

puppets and rag dolls

"Next [Amelia and Pepito] went to the puppet show, and then they watched the acrobats. Best of all they liked the toy vendor. Pepito finally decided to buy a jumping jack. Amelia bought a rag doll and named it after her best friend Rosita because both of them had red cheeks."

Draft illustration, The Fabulous Firework Family, Flora's first published children's book (1955). Image from the James Flora Papers, Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs.

Triclops

That's what we call this beastie, who seems to be self-administering a third-eye implant while balancing a bird with no eyes on his fingertip. The original art is—well, we have no idea. The image appeared in very reduced form (postage stamp-sized) on a Flora business card from the 1950s.

critter cavalcade

Sketchbook untitled elements, with glue residue
ca. 1941-43