Filed Under: "cityscapes"

We received a photo of this festive tableau from our good friend (and devoted Floraphile) in Japan, Takashi Okada. The greeting card, a vintage artifact ca. 1944, was purchased by Takashi from the Flora collection a few years ago. Behind the card sits a demo of Takashi’s forthcoming Raymond Scott Songbook, a 2-cd collection of rare Scott archival recordings and new cover versions by a variety of artists. Positioned to the right is a figurine…

Our latest Jim Flora limited edition fine art print launches today. We’ve dubbed the untitled, undated black and white work Rowayton Creature Tableau because of the strange figures populating the streets of this seaside Connecticut village (the artist’s adopted hometown). The previously uncirculated and unpublished pen & ink with watercolor drawing was discovered in the artist’s collection. We’ve analyzed the technique and determined that it reflects the 1970s style of caricature commonly found in Flora’s…

Pen & ink, 1992, discovered in sketchpad. Like most Flora works of the 1990s, this cityscape has never been published or publicly viewed.

JimFlora.com has released a new fine art print. The panoramic Bell Island at Night was adapted from a 1968 tempera in which Flora provided a surreal nocturnal impression of his neighbors and neighborhood. Bell Island is part of Rowayton CT, and the Flora family lived on the island at 7 St. James from the late 1940s to Flora’s death in 1998. The archival-quality fine art print has been released in an edition of 30 at…

We return from a fine art print hiatus with our first new work of 2011: Bell Island at Night, a 1968 tempera in which Flora provides a surreal nocturnal impression of his neighbors. Bell Island is part of Rowayton (which in turn is part of Norwalk, CT), and the Flora family lived on the island at 7 St. James from the late 1940s to Flora’s death in 1998. Our newest fine art print will be…

Henry Ford in Cetara, rough pencil drawing found in 1991 sketchpad. Cetara is in Italy. There’s no refined sketches and no indication the sketch was developed into a finished work. Flora traveled widely and artfully chronicled his globetrotting. This sketchbook contains no other images of Italy, but does contain a letter handwritten in a Mexican hospital while Flora was being treated for “over medication and loss of blood.” On the preceding page was a journal…

Untitled Mexican motif, pen and ink (or tempera) on paper, 1967. The work was reproduced in our most recent book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora.

Jim Flora’s 1954 cosmopolitan woodcut, Manhattan, has been adapted for the cover of a new music folio. Broadway Celebrates The Big Apple: Over 100 Years of Show Tunes About New York City, was launched January 5 by Alfred Publishing Co. Cary Ginell, Associate Editor for Popular Music at Alfred, is a Flora fan who discussed image licensing with us last year. After reviewing samples, Ginell deemed the Manhattan cityscape ideally suited for this developing project….

One of a dozen woodcuts by Flora depicting New Orleans landmarks, historical vignettes, and social settings. The series was commissioned around 1940 by the Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati for their Agency Bulletin. The whereabouts of the original blocks are unknown. At the time, having recently completed studies at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Flora was a struggling freelancer. “Soft-spoken and unassuming,” the Bulletin proclaimed, “James happens to be the sort of artist…

“Paradises Lost,” illustrationVenture: The Traveler’s WorldJune 1964 (premiere issue) Thanks to Mike Baehr of Fantagraphics.

Bridgeport, tempera on paper, early 1960s

Jim Flora Art LLC has produced a limited-edition, archival-quality fine art print of a 1954 Jim Flora hand-tinted woodcut entitled Manhattan. The cityscape depicts New York in its 1950s glory, including a number of gotham landmarks such as the Empire State Building, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Madison Square Garden, the Statue of Liberty, famous theaters and legendary musical bistros, Washington Square arch, subways, taxis, horse-drawn carriages and tourists. Only twenty-five (25) prints of Manhattan were produced…