Filed Under: "details"

Detail, Mardi Gras figure studies ca. early 1950s, tempera on paper Sketches, full study, and completed color seriesincluded in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora

The cover of the Weekly, anyway (print edition, September 19-25 issue), in conjunction with the just-opened exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore/Gallery. The illustration is a detail from Flora’s 1954 RCA Victor LP cover Shorty Rogers Courts the Count. The Weekly’s Fall Arts section includes this nifty Flora cavalcade and a dozen interior spot placements:

Bottom half of two-tiered tempera found in sketchbook (ca. 1963-65). One of countless Flora works without a title.

Detail, untitled pen and ink depicting an artist suffering from alcoholic delusions, ca. 1993-94, from sketchbook

We’ve compiled a Railroad Town info page at JimFlora.com, commemorating the print’s official “launch.” If you’re curious to learn more about this 1951 Flora masterwork (detail at right) which can now be purchased as a numbered, limited edition relief print, visit Railroad Town Central. Besides the new edition of 50, there are a small number of proofs available in varying ink colors and papers (info on the RRT page). The current block of five released…

Printed, matted and framed by Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress,Knoxville TN, exhibited at NYC Stationery Show May 2007,to introduce a limited line of Flora cards and calendars.Production underway, projected completion late July.

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

Detail from Primer For Prophets, 1954 CBS-TV trade publication,an alphabet booklet with each page illustrated by Flora

Detail, 1943 magazine ad for Columbia Records saxophonist Horace Heidt. First line of ad: “Did you ever see a magician pull a gnu out of an old coffee pot?” Merlin knows that the dung of the wildebeest reduces the bean’s natural acidity, resulting in a more savory brew. Just like Kopi Luwak.

Tempera on paper, ca. 1960 (one-quarter of 8.5″ x 7″ work)

This is a print detail of Railroad Town, a 1951 Jim Flora woodcut. What you see above is approximately one-tenth of the entire 11″ x 22.5″ work. The rest is equally outrageous. Barbara and I just returned from Knoxville, where we oversaw proofs for numbered, archival-quality limited edition relief prints of this iconic Flora work. All prints are restruck from the original Flora-cut block, and the edition will be produced by Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress. Prints…

Jim Flora passed away in 1998, one year after the TV debut of SOUTH PARK. We don’t know if he ever watched it. Yet there is incontrovertible evidence that Flora telepathically transmitted artistic ideas to series creators Matt and Trey. Exhibit A: In the New York Times, March 15, 1959, Flora depicted the stork delivering a litter of South Park denizens: Forty years later, the above figures would have reproduced in sufficient quantities to populate…