Arts and the Man (part 1)

Detail from panoramic illustration for article "Arts and the Man," Park East magazine, May 1953. Flora served as the publication's art director in 1952, but moved on to full-time freelancing in January 1953. His successor in the Park East AD chair was his longtime colleague Robert M. Jones, who had also succeeded Flora as AD at Columbia Records in 1945. Jones jobbed out several Park East illustration assignments to Flora. The following year, Jones was named AD at RCA Victor Records, for whom he commissioned Flora to create some of the label's most iconic LP covers of the mid-decade.

The Perils of Overexuberance

Acrylic on canvas (20" x 16"), mid-1990s, one of countless unpublished and previously uncirculated (and mischievous and unfathomable) late-life works in the Flora archives.

more anatomical spare parts

Detail from the Lord Buckley 10" EP Hipsters, Flipsters, and Finger-Poppin' Daddies, Knock Me Your Lobes, released on RCA Victor in 1955. Left to right: sports-fan centaur, polycephalic saxophonist, jubilant wench. Body count: three figures, eight legs, four heads.

We issued a (very) limited edition print (10) of this iconic Flora cover in 2007. Copies of the original cover fetch beaucoups bucks on Ebay.

Celebrities

Celebrities, pen & ink, early 1990s, from sketchbook

Update: Issued as an open edition fine art print in 2010.

Big Evening

Jim Flora Art has released a limited-edition, archival-quality fine art print of a 1960 Flora painting entitled Big Evening. The hyperactive tableau depicts a cavalcade of misshapen, multi-eyed mutants with bonus body parts. People just like you! The work was produced in an edition of 25. Nine were sold in the first two days after release, our most successful new print launch.

bonus limbs

Flora found them irresistible. Surplus heads too.

The Big Bank Robbery (edition)

Just released: a new Flora fine art print. The Big Bank Robbery (edition of 30) was reproduced from an undated tempera on board that reflects the nuances of Flora's mid-1960s style. (The title was handwritten on the reverse.) The three-tiered tableau depicts colorful Flora mayhem: inscrutable monsters with misshapen features, Lego architecture, bug-eyed buildings, gumdrop color fills, and—yes—a bank robbery.

Standing on the Corner

There are five figures in this undated (late 1960s-early 1970s) Flora tempera, owned by Eric Kohler (who purchased it from the artist in the early 1990s). Two are extracted above. They—and their three unseen compatriots—will not be featured in our forthcoming third Flora anthology.

There's plenty of great unpublished images for volume four (target publication date 2012). Sorry if we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The Errant Postulant

Two characters, five legs. This acrylic on canvas (15-3/4" x 20", late 1990s) almost made it into our forthcoming book, but was edged out by a plethora of prominent works. Flora produced some interesting, mystifying paintings in his final decade (after, by his own admission, "painting myself out of boats" in the late 1980s). Above is a low-grade snapshot corrected in Photoshop; the recently discovered work has not yet been professionally documented.

A postulant is someone who submits a request or applies for admission, especially into a religious order. Errant means straying, deviating from a proper course, or roving adventurously. Like, y'know, Julie Andrews.

UPDATE (10 May 09): The work was professionally photographed last week and is now slated for reproduction as a fine art print later this year.

The Rover Boys

The Rover Boys, tempera on board, ca. 1943. The work was presented as a wedding gift to Clara Gee Kastner and Stanley Stamaty, Flora's classmates and friends from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. (Clara and Stan are the parents of cartoonist Mark Alan Stamaty.) No idea if the triple-headed figure was intended to portray the Rover lads of literary fame. The work was reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora

A pen and pencil sketch was later discovered in the Flora collection on a multi-panel sheet of unrelated drawings:

White Block Quadrupeds

Our latest Jim Flora fine art print is White Block Quadrupeds (an informal name for the above untitled work). WBQ is an uncirculated, early 1940s Flora painting which depicts an inscrutable panorama of disconnected facial features, headless quadrupeds, and a fanged horse. The original was painted in tempera on a thick rectangular block of wood the artist had first swathed in a coat of white. The stylized figures echo motifs found in the artist's work from 1942 to 1944, after he was hired by the Columbia Records art department.

Only 25 prints were produced for this edition. The image area is the exact size of the original work. Size, price, and print specs are posted at JimFlora.com.

Here's an undated pencil sketch of the work:

strange foot traffic

Duos, a collection of works by Charles Wuorinen composed for two musicians, is now available from Albany Records. The untitled Flora cover art, licensed for this release (by Howard Stokar), is from an early- to mid-1960s sketchbook.

Sorcerer's Village

Pen & ink drawing, mid-1990s. This work was later adapted for a large colorful acrylic canvas. Both undated works reflect Flora's mid-1990s techniques and media. The painting was recently photographed and is being considered for reproduction in our next anthology.

Art serving commerce

business card, Davis Delaney Printing (ca. 1950s)

adapted pencil and tempera figures from sketchbook

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.

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.

One for the Mütter Museum

Untitled tempera on card stock, dated 6/42. Hydra-headed mutants abound during this transitional period in Flora's life. Just a few months earlier he had departed his native Ohio and relocated to Connecticut to take a job with the Columbia Records art department under Alex Steinweiss.

Actually, Flora never outgrew multi-headed mutants with bonus appendages. They recur in every period of his artistic life.

Duos

Another vintage Flora illustration adorns a record cover: Charles Wuorinen's Duos CD (Albany Records, January 2009 scheduled release). The untitled tempera of pink, green, and brown criss-crossing pedestrians dates from the early 1960s. The CD joins a growing gallery of new releases carrying the Flora album cover tradition into the 21st century.

Thanks to Howard Stokar, executive producer of the CD, for requesting the cover image.

Update (Jan. 12): CD now available.

night rider

Top section of untitled three-tiered tempera and pencil, from sketchbook, ca. early 1950s. The two lower tiers, using the same color palette, are no less comically inscrutable.

Taken Before His Time

Pen and ink, 1998. One of several works by Flora with this title, in various media, rendered in the final years of his life.

On this date ten years ago, James Flora passed away at age 84. Nine days later the New York Times published an obit by Steven Heller.

I posted a tribute at the WFMU blog, citing Flora's posthumous contributions to the station's visual identity.