Filed Under: "animals"

The full title of this undated (early- to mid-1940s) work is The Rape of the Stationmaster’s Daughter, a tempera on paper, titled in pencil on the reverse. It was reproduced in our second Flora anthology, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora, and its anatomically absurd actors were adapted by designer Laura Lindgren for the cover. In 2008 we issued a fine art print. A customer purchased a print last month and expressed admiration at…

NOW AVAILABLE: the next four works in the Primer for Prophets screen print series. Cool Flora illustrations of the American nuclear family during the 1950s, when grocers employed stockdogs, crows fought tug-of-war over lingerie, and cigarettes were obligatory in the obstetrics ward. The images derive from a 1954 trade-only alphabet booklet that Flora illustrated for CBS-TV, depicting consumer markets for prospective TV advertisers. The third set of prints features ECONOMIZED, NURSED, UNDERESTIMATED, and WASHED. Each…

Anthropomorphic lobsters from sketchbook, pencil and crayon, early 1960s. Intended project unknown.

Acrylic on canvas, 1992. Irving Milfred “Miff” Mole was a legendary American jazz trombonist who first came to prominence in 1920s hot jazz. Tommy Dorsey called him “the Babe Ruth of the trombone.” Amid the painting’s colorful details, pay special attention to this great freakin’ tree:

Flora loved experimenting with hand-typography throughout his career, from the 1930s to the 1990s. (Click on tag below to see previous examples.) He occasionally created anthropomorphic letters. The above detail derives from an undated 1990s-era painting entitled The Many Aspects of Love. The large-scale tempera is a lower-tier work reflecting Flora’s libidinous streak with cartoonish figures, a recurring theme which usually makes us cringe. However, the lettering of each word in the tableau demonstrates Flora’s…

Illustration, Parade magazine, January 18, 1959. Article about people with genetic and/or psychological dispositions to behavioral patterns that cause health problems. The above tableau (from a tearsheet in the Flora archives) appears on page 9 beneath the semi-title ” … Disease Personality.” We’re missing page 8, which would provide the rest of the title.

Detail (about one-sixth of the entire tableau), acrylic on canvas, 1992. On the back of the canvas the artist wrote: “Berber Camel Market (a plaque in Morocco).”

Just released: a new Flora fine art print. The Big Bank Robbery (edition of 30) was reproduced from an undated tempera on board that reflects the nuances of Flora’s mid-1960s style. (The title was handwritten on the reverse.) The three-tiered tableau depicts colorful Flora mayhem: inscrutable monsters with misshapen features, Lego architecture, bug-eyed buildings, gumdrop color fills, and—yes—a bank robbery.

Postman bites dog! Or at least appears to be attempting to turn the tables. Tempera draft from The Day The Cow Sneezed, courtesy the Dr. Irvin Kerlan children’s literature collection. Although the book was published in 1957, archival correspondence between Flora and his Harcourt editor Margaret McElderry indicates the book was being developed as early as 1955, the same year Flora’s first children’s book, The Fabulous Firework Family, was published.

Detail, The Depot Fire, tempera on paper, 1963. This is about one-third of the entire work, which will be fully reproduced in our forthcoming book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora. We reviewed printer’s proofs of the pages this week, and the book is on schedule for publication by Fantagraphics in August or September.

Pencil sketch, ca. 1940-42. A refined wood- or linocut of this critter appeared in the 1942 Little Man Press chapbook GUP, one of many Flora spot illustrations adorning the Robert Lowry story “The Hotel.”

Detail, Vaya Laredo, pen & ink, 1998. Full work to be reproduced in The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, scheduled for Fall 2009 publication by Fantagraphics Books.