Filed Under: "birds"

Woodcut print accompanying Robert Lowry‘s short story, “March Morning,” page 36, Hutton Street (Little Man Press, 1940). This 7-1/2″ x 5″ chapbook contains 18 meticulous woodengravings by Flora. Whereabouts of the original blocks is (ahem!) unknown.

Pen & ink drawing, mid-1990s. This work was later adapted for a large colorful acrylic canvas. Both undated works reflect Flora’s mid-1990s techniques and media. The painting was recently photographed and is being considered for reproduction in our next anthology.

Detail, Peter and the Wolf album promotion,Columbia Coda, January 1953. Wolf on lunch break.

That’s what we call this beastie, who seems to be self-administering a third-eye implant while balancing a bird with no eyes on his fingertip. The original art is—well, we have no idea. The image appeared in very reduced form (postage stamp-sized) on a Flora business card from the 1950s.

Pencil sketches for Till Eulenspiegel LP cover, 1955. The above skeletal figures eventually morphed into this rough layout: … which was refined as this unfinished tempera setting: … which evolved into this finished RCA Victor Red Seal cover: Till Eulenspiegel was an impudent prankster in German folklore. Flora rendered several pen and ink drawings of the trickster in the 1990s. Perhaps he recognized a kindred spirit.

It’s been a long time comin’ here in Minnesota — at last I can milk the cow, play some records and mow the lawn! Ah, yes — but it still drizzles. Hence the umbrella. And cigar. Saturday Evening Post advertising promotional booklet, 1955.

Detail, Mme Tellier’s Picnic, pen & ink, 1995

Detail, Chioggia, early 1960s, acrylic

“Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime.” untitled tempera with pencil, ca. early 1960s found in sketchbook

Detail, Baltimore, tempera on paper, ca. mid-1960s

Pen and ink, rendered two months before Flora’s death in July 1998.

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