Filed Under: "bonus limbs"

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.

business card, Davis Delaney Printing (ca. 1950s) adapted pencil and tempera figures from sketchbook

Detail, The First Five Years, acrylic on wood, ca. early 1970s. The second of six horizontal tiers depicting incidents during the artist’s childhood. Exactly what these figures represent—good question.

Two new Jim Flora silk screen prints are available at JimFlora.com. Both are based on untitled, undated temperas from the mid-1960s, which were discovered pages apart in a sketchpad. We informally call this one Entangled Couple: And this one has been nicknamed Canoe Critters: Each was produced in a numbered edition of 100 by Aesthetic Apparatus, in Minneapolis, and though the prints are color-matched, they can be purchased separately. (If you want both and use…

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.

Another vintage Flora illustration adorns a record cover: Charles Wuorinen‘s Duos CD (Albany Records, January 2009 scheduled release). The untitled tempera of pink, green, and brown criss-crossing pedestrians dates from the early 1960s. The CD joins a growing gallery of new releases carrying the Flora album cover tradition into the 21st century. Thanks to Howard Stokar, executive producer of the CD, for requesting the cover image. Update (Jan. 12): CD now available.

Top section of untitled three-tiered tempera and pencil, from sketchbook, ca. early 1950s. The two lower tiers, using the same color palette, are no less comically inscrutable.

Pen and ink, 1998. One of several works by Flora with this title, in various media, rendered in the final years of his life. On this date ten years ago, James Flora passed away at age 84. Nine days later the New York Times published an obit by Steven Heller. I posted a tribute at the WFMU blog, citing Flora’s posthumous contributions to the station’s visual identity.

Flora-related stuff on the web: Dan Pearson of the Pioneer-Press (Illinois) reviews the Lake County Discovery Museum‘s exhibit: “Flora’s Art is Full of Fun.” Story includes interviews with LCDM’s Steve Furnet and your Florablogger. “Scribbler,” based in San Antonio, blogs about Vintage Books My Kid Loves, including Flora’s Kangaroo for Christmas and Grandpa’s Farm. Flora illustratrations for “Will Robots Make People Obsolete?” Parade Magazine, 1959, posted at the Paleo-Future blog. And download some Flora WFMU…

early 1940s pencil sketch adapted forRobert Lowry short story “The Monkey Cane,”appearing in Gup (Little Man Press, 1942)

Detail, The Big Bank Robbery, undated acrylic on board, ca. early 1960s complete work reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora P.S. Another detail:

New Jim Flora fine art print launched on eBay. Two prints offered @ Buy-It-Now price of $250/ea. Not mentioned in item description: we have already sold prints 17/20 and 18/20; after the two launch prints sell, the next two released prints (15/20 and 16/20) will be offered at $300 via JimFlora.com. Elements of this early 1940s tempera were adapted for the cover of The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora.