Filed Under: "Cincinnati"

Another rare (and previously unseen) print acquired from a recent estate sale in Cincinnati. As with all prints from Flora’s productive post-Art Academy period, the original block cannot be located (possibly having been destroyed or discarded by Flora’s LMP partner Robert Lowry). The above water-damaged print is unsigned, untitled, and unnumbered. No documentation exists regarding the work’s purpose (e.g., publicity, ad, edition print, chapbook page). The faded vertical center section (and lack of signature) implies…

Woodcut print, ca. 1938-1940, rendered when Flora lived in Cincinnati and was working with Robert Lowry producing Little Man Press publications. Title, edition run, and location of original block unknown. The print was discovered in the estate of a Cincinnati collector who passed away at age 93 several months ago. The collection included about a dozen vintage Flora prints, most previously unseen by us. We’ll publish others soon.

Above: rejected attempt at a Little Man Press logo, ca. 1939-1940, discovered in early sketchbook. The experiments continued: Eventually Flora and his LMP partner Robert Lowry settled on this design:

Mount Adams ascension, one of a series of woodcut prints the young Flora rendered for the Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati’s August 1941 publication, Life Association News. The images accompanied an article entitled “Where to go … What to do … While you’re in Cincinnati.” These woodcuts have not been republished since their first appearance seven decades ago. The location of the original wood blocks is unknown.

Dummy page, Columbia’s Children’s Album Sets, demo booklet, 1941, part of a series of homemade samples prepared by Flora for the Columbia Records art department. Flora was living in Cincinnati at the time, an Art Academy grad, newly married, barely making ends meet as a freelance commercial illustrator, and sidelining on Little Man Press projects with Robert Lowry. Within a year, Columbia art director Alex Steinweiss offered Flora a job. Within two years, Flora had…

Update: Two prints sold. Edition now available at JimFlora.com. Now listed on eBay: a limited-edition, archival-quality fine art print of an uncirculated 1963 Flora tempera painting, Back to Bellefontaine. Flora was born in Bellefontaine, Logan County, Ohio, in 1914, and lived there until 1934, when he enrolled at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Only 25 prints were produced for this edition. Prints #25/25 and 24/25 are being offered at the launch price of $200/ea. Prices…

Mount Adams Winter Scene (1937) was painted by Flora while studying at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and is the only existing color work from his academy days. It may, in fact, be the earliest existing Flora work—period. (There are undated student-era sketches.) The style, of course, does not reflect Flora’s future direction. At the academy he was training to be a fine artist, and such were his aspirations. It’s ironic that in the depths…