Filed Under: "1940s"

Untitled, undated pencil drawing on onionskin paper; later printed in Gup, a 1942 chapbook authored by Robert Lowry, issued by Little Man Press (Cincinnati), featuring cover and interior illustrations by Flora.

Untitled pen & ink sketch, ca. 1940. I detect the influence of Daniel Johnston. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Never mind.

Or perhaps she’s just contented. Early pencil sketch, ca. 1940. There are a number of pencil and pen sketches in the archives which evolved through stages into paintings. This, so far as we know, isn’t one.

untitled, undated pen and ink, ca. 1940

D.B. Dowd (Professor of Visual Communication, Washington University, St.Louis) opines: The modernist drive to split representation from its subject (that is, to open up a space between them, at the very least) included the ransacking of pre-modern art historical conventions, often to excellent effect. Jim Flora’s 1945 Coda cover draws on spot color printing and the use of spatial registers, a la Egyptian art, to deliver a strong graphic narrative with clarity and visual independence…

Mount Adams Winter Scene (1937) was painted by Flora while studying at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and is the only existing color work from his academy days. It may, in fact, be the earliest existing Flora work—period. (There are undated student-era sketches.) The style, of course, does not reflect Flora’s future direction. At the academy he was training to be a fine artist, and such were his aspirations. It’s ironic that in the depths…

Now, as it did in 1943 when Flora provided this illustration for a Columbia Records magazine ad:The smiley flora has antecedents: Title page, Pip Pap Po, print from woodcut, Little Man Press (Cincinnati), 1940

A rare early 1940s relief print of a Jim Flora woodcut, printed by the artist over 60 years ago, is now being auctioned on eBay by the late artist’s family. The auction closes on May 25. The untitled, unsigned and undated work reflects Flora’s early 1940s style, when many of his paintings, sketches and commercial illustrations featured disconnected body parts and pulled-apart faces linked with pin-lines, like a Calder mobile. Flora learned woodcutting at the…

Detail, 1943 magazine ad for Columbia Records saxophonist Horace Heidt. First line of ad: “Did you ever see a magician pull a gnu out of an old coffee pot?” Merlin knows that the dung of the wildebeest reduces the bean’s natural acidity, resulting in a more savory brew. Just like Kopi Luwak.

Jim Flora passed away in 1998, one year after the TV debut of SOUTH PARK. We don’t know if he ever watched it. Yet there is incontrovertible evidence that Flora telepathically transmitted artistic ideas to series creators Matt and Trey. Exhibit A: In the New York Times, March 15, 1959, Flora depicted the stork delivering a litter of South Park denizens: Forty years later, the above figures would have reproduced in sufficient quantities to populate…

Bet your moose can’t toot his own horn! Know why? Three reasons: 1) You didn’t sign him up for lessons;2) Clumsy, cloven hooves—can’t work keys; and,3) He’s not a Floramoose! Detail from December 1942 Columbia-Okeh new release monthly. Complete booklet featured in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora.

The music business is infested with characters who are unpleasant — few more so than Courtney T. Edison, a.k.a. “The Old Codger,” who occasionally hosts radio programs at WFMU. He plays nothing but 78 rpm records—”Like they’re goin’ outta style,” he asserts, with a spray of saliva. The Codge is a nasty piece of work—an ornery, crusty, useless, misanthropic, cigar-chomping anachronism. How old? Allegedly between 116 and—well, at his age they mark birthdays by the…