hand-printed card, early 1940s

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.

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.

Part of Flora’s is alsopart of Columbia’s.

Spot illustration, Coda, June 1943

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.

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…

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.

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

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….