Filed Under: "birds"

Jim Flora Art has launched a new limited edition fine art print: INSIDE SAUTER-FINEGAN, a 1954 RCA Victor LP that features one of Flora’s best-known cover illustrations. Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan were famous for their orchestral mayhem. While Flora’s mischievous cover figures didn’t physically resemble Eddie or Bill, his caricatures reflected their inventive approach to redefining big band jazz in the 1950s. The print image is larger (15-1/2″ square) than the 12″ square LP….

Baltimore, tempera on heavy stock, early 1960s

Salt Pond – Block Island, tempera and pencil on paper, 1963. This previously uncirculated work was first published in our 2009 anthology, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora (the only one of our three Flora compendiums currently in print). The work reflects Flora’s love of rustic maritime locales and things that float. Block Island, Rhode Island is located off the southern coast of the state. Wiki contains the following about the saline pond: Great…

Untitled pencil drawing discovered in mid-1960s sketchpad. Theme unknown. The pad included dozens of rough pencil sketches for Flora’s 1964 book My Friend Charlie, along with a number of unrelated sketches, mainly architectural, some Mexico-inspired, most incomplete. This work echoes nothing else in the sketchpad, or any other known Flora work.

Untitled, incomplete tempera and pencil drawing, ca. 1950, found in a sketchbook from Flora’s Mexican period (1950-51). The ghostly shadows in the periphery reflect bleedthrough from an image on the reverse side of the page. No finished or refined version of this work has been found.

New from P22 Type Foundry: Based on playful hand-lettering from the 1955 Jim Flora Mambo For Cats RCA Victor album cover, the set includes “Flornaments,” consisting of 72 miniature figure icons (dingbats) from Flora artworks. Samples:

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.

Our third series of Primer for Prophets screen prints are in production, and should be ready for market by early October. “W” is among the featured letters. For more information, click on the “Primer for Prophets” tag at the bottom to see previous posts. The series is being produced by our friends at Aesthetic Apparatus, of Minneapolis. Series 1: Ate, Drove, Jived, and Smoked. Series 2: Cooked, Groomed, Kissed, and Quaffed.

Tempera illustration from Sherwood Walks Home (1966), part of the James Flora Papers in the Kerlan children’s literature collection at the University of Minnesota. A chapter in our forthcoming Flora book will be devoted to images from the collection (the above is not included) and a profile of Dr. Irvin Kerlan, patron saint of tot-lit. We’ve previously posted several drafts and sketches discovered in the Kerlan vaults.

Detail, Inside Sauter-Finegan RCA Victor LP cover, 1954. I bought this record at a yard sale in 1974 just for the sleeve illustration, which graced my living room wall. Never got around to dropping the needle on the vinyl. But you can listen to (and watch) Bill (Finegan) and Eddie (Sauter) on YouTube.

Born this day in 1916. In 1939 the trumpeter, already a top-tier bandleader, hired a smooth, upcoming but relatively unknown vocalist from New Jersey, but failed to convince the kid to change his name to “Frankie Satin.” Within a year, James and singer had parted ways, the latter to join Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra. Within a few years, both James and the kid crooner were on their respective ways to becoming music legends. Columbia Records ad…

Detail, Grandpa’s Ghost Stories (Atheneum Books, 1978). Yes, this little mise en scène is from a lighthearted book for young readers. Fun for the whole family! Bone apetit!