anthropomorphic lobsters

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

The Miraculous Mambo Returns!

In 2012 we sold our 200th and final oversized Mambo For Cats screen print, the last of a limited edition produced by Aesthetic Apparatus of Minneapolis in 2006. Almost immediately, a legion of Floraphiles—especially those fond of felines and Latin terpsichore—began clamoring for this work to be restored to our catalog. The nature of limited editions precludes us from issuing the work in an identical (or even comparable) format. Two hundred hand-numbered, Flora family-authenticated, 20"-square Mambo screen prints (and two dozen proofs) exist. There won't be any more. Want one? You'll have to search on the secondary market—which means find someone who bought one and wants to sell it. We don't control that market, and price is determined by supply and demand.

But we do control the underlying image, and limited edition print protocols permit us to issue the work in an altered format. Consider it done. To celebrate the publication of The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora, our fourth anthology—and one which specifically features all of Flora's known album covers—we've revived Mambo for Cats. This week we're launching an edition of 200 hand-numbered, 11-1/2"-square, archival-quality fine art prints. It's about 40% smaller than the screen print, and is produced on different paper with different inks via an entirely different printing process (inkjet, or giclée). The giclée image is slightly smaller than a 12" LP cover in order to accommodate a 3/4" margin on an untrimmed 13" x 19" sheet of 310g Hahnemühle stock. (A smaller margin would make matting problematic.) One other significant difference: the screen print was on cream-colored stock; the giclée stock is white.

Upon learning about the new Mambo edition, ears began to perk up in the Flora community:

We also offer a Mambo mini—a 7"-square archival quality print. This is an open edition, meaning the prints are not numbered nor is the edition limited. To date we've sold about 150 minis.

We can't guarantee these Mambo kitties will have nine lives, but for now they're happy to embark on their third.

slight makeover

The JimFlora.com homepage, long overdue for an update, finally got one. Besides our forthcoming book, The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora (due September 7 from Fantagraphics), you'll find a first announcement about a Flora centennial exhibit at Silvermine Arts Center in September 2014. We've also added Amazon.com links for our two Flora children's books reprinted by Enchanted Lion. In the coming weeks we will post information about several additions to our fine art prints catalog.

The Fourth of July

The work isn't titled, and there's no specific reference to Independence Day, but this unpublished 1990s acrylic on canvas suggests celebratory patriotism and civic pride, so we'll offer it as tribute to our nation's founding 236 years ago today.

P.S. This non sequitur works too. Illustration from The Fabulous Firework Family, Flora's first (1955) children's book.

traffic snarls

Miserable pedestrian—what part of "beep" don't you understand?

Untitled, unfinished tempera on board (detail), 1950s. Purpose unknown.

"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.

Well-Fed at Last

These two tempera with pencil illustrations, differently titled yet seemingly related, were discovered in a mid-1960s Flora sketchpad pages apart. Both have a completed look, yet no discernible (or documented) purpose. Well-Fed At Last is signed, which indicates the artist considered the work finished and fit to behold. The alligator has a vicious or peeved demeanor. He has no love.

 

Local Government or the Commuter is unsigned, but has the added element of a homo sapien entree (moments before the dessert menu). Absent a context, the title appears to make no sense. Oddly, the alligator, who appears more satisfied than his above cousin, has one mismatched foot. His satisfaction no doubt derives from his happy meal.

 

 

puzzle pony

Untitled, undated, unsigned woodcut print from Flora's Little Man Press days (1939-1942). The original block cannot be located, and we have no idea of the image's original context. It does not appear in any LMP publications.

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.

Charlie Yup's cast of characters

Hand-drawn two-page spread of figure studies for Flora's third book for young readers, Charlie Yup and His Snip-Snap Boys (1959). The pages, which do not appear in the published edition, were scanned from the Dr. Irvin C. Kerlan children's literature collection at the U of Minnesota.

On the mock title page at right, the author refers to the book as "An Old Fashioned Scissor and Paper Adventure." Although the characters above were drawn in pencil and painted in tempera, a few draft pages (later donated by Flora to Dr. Kerlan), including an early version of the title page, feature hand-cut figures glued to the paper.

The explanatory note atop the left page was intended for Margaret McElderry, the legendary children's book editor who in the mid-1950s encouraged Flora to embark on a secondary career that yielded 17 titles (all edited by McElderry) in 27 years. Charlie Yup is the hardest-to-find of the vintage Flora books, rarely turning up at auction or in the listings of antiquarian booksellers.

McElderry passed away in February at the age of 98.

artist at rest

Today in 1914, James Royer Flora was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Above our guy is pictured relaxing at home in the late 1980s. Interesting juxtaposition of bold patterns, with hunting jacket, slacks and chair vying for focal primacy. Cameo in the upper right by the Fab Four, depicted in 1964, tho it appears to be a hand-rendered (probably not by Flora) replica of a famous photo.

Flora's daughter Julia provides some family context:

I love this picture; this is exactly the way I'll always remember him, with that great head of hair and his flair (?) for mixing plaids (we used to tease him about that all the time). I'm fairly sure it was my brother Robert that took it and probably for some kind of promo shot Dad asked him to create.

In the early 1970s, Flora rendered an autobiographical montage, The First Five Years, in acrylic on wood. The work featured six stacked tiers depicting incidents during the artist's childhood. We posted one tier in December 2008. Here's another:

hybrid vehicle

This steamroller is obviously in violation of some vehicular maximum-occupancy statute. The question is—who gets ordered to court? Most likely young Fletcher (at the controls), the only homo sapien on the scene. He's the most convenient scapegoat (though not the only goat).

All the other animals jumped on top of the steam roller as fast as they could. It was the only safe place to be.

"STOP!," everyone was shouting.

But the steam roller kept right on at full speed.

Page from The Day The Cow Sneezed, Flora's 1957 children's book (his second), reprinted in October 2010 by Enchanted Lion.

Walter Beartree & the Boo-Saying Whale

Flora authored and illustrated 17 children's books under his own name between 1955 (The Fabulous Firework Family) and 1982 (Grandpa's Witched-Up Christmas). A milk crate in the Flora archives contains contracts and correspondence for each one. Most of the letters passed between the author/artist and his legendary editress, Margaret McElderry.

The crate is also stuffed with manila folders for dozens of abandoned or rejected book ideas. Walter Beartree and the Boo-Saying Whale does not have a folder, but these pencil roughs were discovered in a sketchbook from the mid-1950s.

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.

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.

After Uplift, Ka-Chow!

In the Nov. 20 Wall Street Journal "Bookshelf" column, Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews Flora's 1957 The Day The Cow Sneezed, recently reprinted by Enchanted Lion Books:

"Flora's style is about as goofily retro as it's possible to get, with wide-eyed men in suits, amazed-looking wild animals, and an old-fashioned matte palate of red, pink, green and gray. In the story a series of wild events unfurls when a boy neglects his cow, which catches cold and lets loose a colossal sneeze. The force of it bowls half the farmyard first onto a motorcycle and then onto a steamroller, which topples statues and scrunches through a zoo."

The Day the Cow Sneezed mini-print

JimFlora.com has issued a low-cost ($25) fine art print of the cover of THE DAY THE COW SNEEZED, Flora's second kiddie book. Originally published in 1957 by Harcourt, the book was just reprinted by Enchanted Lion. Our 11" x 8-1/2" print features the complete cover art (used on both editions), including Flora's playful hand-cut letters. This is an open, unnumbered edition (i.e., there is no limit on the print run).

domestic disturbance

Detail, "Furnished," Primer for Prophets alphabet series, 1954. We've issued 12 letters as limited edition screen prints, but "F(urnished)" is still in the deep freeze. The full print isn't as disturbing as the above detail suggests—the husband beyond the crop hasn't lost his cool. All shall be revealed by the time we complete the series.

life in the food chain

Half-page from unfinished and untitled hand-painted children's book prototype, ca. early 1960s. The project includes ten words (e.g., "automation," "characteristic," "evident," "powerful") defined, pronounced and illustrated for young readers. A previous partial page ("fantasy") appeared on this blog in November 2008.

tail wagger

Detail, "Raided," Primer for Prophets alphabet series, 1954. We've issued 12 letters as limited edition screen prints, but "R" remains on our to-do list.