untitled tempera on paper, ca. 1960s

unfinished, untitled pen & ink drawing, sketchbook entry, ca. early 1950s crawly critter (related?)

One of many—a recurring Flora motif. There’s something jazz-like about these images, as if the artist were jamming on a canvas, creating rhythmic design. This untitled 10 x 8 tempera, discovered in a sketchbook, dates from the early to mid-1960s. There are dozens of sketchbooks in the collection, spanning the early 1940s to the month of Flora’s death in July 1998. Aside from pen and pencil project drafts, the books contain numerous fully rendered (and…

Flora did some mind-bending works in the 1990s — more curiously sinister than his work in the 1980s (IMHO). Quetzlcoatl [sic] Returns is an acrylic on stretched canvas (15″ x 30″) rendered within a year of the artist’s death. Flora, who lived in Mexico in 1950-1951, was a longtime enthusiast of Latin American folkways.

Spot illustration, Research & Engineering, April 1956

untitled pen and ink drawing, 1990s, possibly Mexico

Detail, untitled holiday painting, ca. 1951. These stemware sophisticates also appear on a t-shirt Sketch, ca. 1951, featuring a draft of the celebratory duo

Detail, March 1943 Columbia-Okeh Popular Recordsmonthly flyer; panel: Harry James

montage by IC using early 1950s Flora details Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Merry Saturnalia, Happy Festivus—whatever.

Self-Portrait, tempera on paper, ca. mid- to late-1940s. Update OCT 2008: Now available as a limited edition fine art print.