Filed Under: "1940s"

Guitar in a seductive pose — spot illustration from A-D Gallery invitation to Flora’s first New York City exhibition, June 1943.

Sketchbook untitled elements, with glue residueca. 1941-43

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.

… is now open. Jim Flora hand-printed notecards, fine art bookmarks, and 2009 letterpress calendars at affordable prices. We’ve also released a number of new fine art and album cover prints over the past few weeks but haven’t had an opportunity to alert our mailing list. Here’s two, but there’s more over at JimFlora.com: Self-Portrait, ca. 1947 Gunfight on the Roof, 1951

Untitled tempera with pencil on board, ca. 1942-43. Disjointed face atop a tin-toy windup key torso. No problem with that.

Untitled tempera illustration for unknown magazine, March 1958. Stamped on reverse: “kill” — which doesn’t refer to the dragon or the knight-in-a-necktie. It refers to the drawing, which was rejected for unknown reasons. An earlier throwdown:

Detail from “Ohio,” full-page illustration commissioned by Container Corporation of America, 1947. The montage (fully reproduced in The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora, page 167) originally appeared in several nationally distributed magazines, including Fortune and Time. A detail previously posted here came from a scan of the magazine tearsheet. The above detail originated from a higher-resolution color print issued in 1948 by CCA. As their name implies, CCA manufactured containers. The one pictured in cross-section…

One of a dozen woodcuts by Flora depicting New Orleans landmarks, historical vignettes, and social settings. The series was commissioned around 1940 by the Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati for their Agency Bulletin. The whereabouts of the original blocks are unknown. At the time, having recently completed studies at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Flora was a struggling freelancer. “Soft-spoken and unassuming,” the Bulletin proclaimed, “James happens to be the sort of artist…

Cover, Columbia-Okeh Popular Records new release monthly, March 1943. (The sepia tint is an aging artifact.) Flora had designed these foldout booklets — covers and interiors — over the second half of 1942. Columbia appointed Flora art director, succeeding Alex Steinweiss, in late 1943, and he continued illustrating these monthlies through 1944. Three full 1942 spreads were reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora.

Cover artwork (typography removed) of Sidney Bechet 78 rpm set (Columbia C-173), 1948. Flora had a particular fondness for early New Orleans jazz, especially the recordings of legendary soprano saxophonist/clarinetist Bechet (1897-1959).

Our friend Takashi Okada of Tokyo has become the pre-eminent Floraphile in Japan. Besides being an avid customer of Jim Flora fine art prints, Takashi recently designed the Daisy Holiday CD package, which adapts Flora’s 1947 Green Mansions resort brochure illustration (licensed from the Flora estate). Additional Flora elements appear on the jewel case inlay and in the booklet. Here’s a Tokyo record store display flush with Flora. If you don’t live in that part…

Pen drawing on onionskin paper with glue residue, early 1940s, from scrapbook. This freakish apparition has been blessed by the artist with bonus arms that appear to be appendages of his head, which has a stem on which to balance a coat hanger.