Filed Under: "1950s"

Hand-lettered typography from cover of Charlie Barnet‘s 1955 compilation Redskin Romp 7″ EP (also released as a 12″ LP). Barnet (1913-1991) was a Swing Era bandleader and saxophonist whose first 78 rpm hit, “Cherokee,” released in 1939, inspired the Indian-themed title of this 33-1/3 rpm hi-fi retrospective. Above is a section of the full cover; that’s a non-lookalike caricature of Barnet in the lower left.

Detail, cover illustration, “Human Engineering: Tailoring the Machine to the Man,” Research and Engineering magazine, February 1956. We reproduced the entire illustration here. Pure blacks are missing from the detail, an enlargement of a scan of a worn cover. Copies of R&E in any condition are difficult to find, and the original art has not been located.

Flora’s first children’s book, published in 1955, was adapted for animation by UPA‘s Terrytoons in 1959. It was directed by Al Kousel and produced by Flora’s longtime friend Gene Deitch. Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew posted it to YouTube and wrote about the project at his blog here. We agree with Jerry’s assessment: “Though Flora was involved with adapting the story to the screen, the final result wasn’t entirely successful in translating the charm of…

One-half of an undated black and white business card (mock-up) from the 1950s. At the time, though he lived in Rowayton CT, Flora shared an office (and probably an art studio) at 21 East 63rd Street in Manhattan. A classic tempera painting from the period caricatures the neighborhood. No copies of the printed version of this card exist in the Flora collection. The discoloration in the upper right is an aging artifact.

Detail from title page, Charlie Yup and His Snip-Snap Boys, Flora’s third children’s book, 1959. That’s Charlie, snipping away at right; the villain with the lasso is Red Mike. In the book, Red Mike is … red. However, as with many illustrated books of the period, color pages alternated with black and white to make printing more economical. A number of Flora’s kiddie books reflect this trend.

Page from 1957 sales brochure for Electromechanical Design magazine. Flora illustrated an unknown number of covers for this (now long-defunct) monthly. In the 1950s and ’60s, he was often a go-to artist for science-related journalism, as evidenced by his work for Research & Engineering magazine.

Peter Ceragioli Jr. was born this day in 1932. You may not recognize this West Coast jazz pianist, accordionist, and composer by his birth name. Beyond TV and film soundtrack cognoscenti, he’s probably obscure even by his stage name—Pete Jolly. The keyboardist was a child prodigy on accordion, as spaceagepop.com points out: When he was eight, he made his first broadcast appearance, billed as “The Boy Wonder Accordionist” on CBS Radio’s Hobby Lobby. The show’s…

Jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, as portrayed by Flora for the March 1952 issue of Columbia’s monthly Coda new release booklet. Goodman was a founding father of the mid-1930s jazz big band (“swing”) style—launched in force after he hired arranger Fletcher Henderson in 1935. As he matured, he performed and recorded classical repertoire; the above figures illustrated Coda’s preview of Goodman’s recording (with the American Art Quartet) of Mozart’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings. Flora was…

Left half of endpaper, Charlie Yup and His Snip-Snap Boys, Flora’s third children’s book, published in 1959. This seems to be the rarest of Flora’s out-of-print kid-lit. Antiquarian book dealers ask three figures for used copies. This book also betokens the end of Flora’s classic, edgy 1950s commercial illustration style, which became tamer in the 1960s.

Unfinished pencil and tempera sketch, ca. 1950-51 (Flora’s Mexican sojourn), found in artist’s notebook. There’s no evidence the work was refined or adapted for any other purpose. The ghost image in the background is the bleedthrough of a series of figures on the reverse. The left figure above has some female attributes, the right some vague echoes of manhood. Regarding the lady, we won’t speculate on what’s protruding from her butt or clustered in her…

Yesterday we (officially) launched our latest limited edition screen print series, Mardi Gras Quartet. (They’ve been “unofficially” available on our website for months.) Based on an early 1950s series painted by Flora while living in Mexico, each print is identical except for color scheme. The original four variants, along with sketches and figure studies (displayed at the bottom of the linked print page), were reproduced in our second book, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim…

Today we launch a new Jim Flora fine art print: Ferris Wheel Fireworks, adapted from Flora’s second kiddie book, The Day the Cow Sneezed (1957). The long-sought book will be reprinted this fall by Enchanted Lion. At that time we’ll issue a print of the book cover, which includes the artist’s fabulous hand-typography. However, during the image restoration process, Flora archivist/printmaker Barbara Economon saw the print possibilities of the book’s chaotic two-page (34-35) tableau. The…