Filed Under: "food + drink"

If you’re planning to attend the above June 10 exhibit — you’re 66 years too late. However, by historical accounts Flora’s first New York City gallery show, held in 1943, was fabulously successful. A few months earlier, Flora had been named art director at Columbia Records, replacing the man who hired him, Alex Steinweiss (at left with the artist in photo below). The whereabouts of the inscrutable petroglyphs on the wall? All will be revealed…

There are presently twenty different page headers at JimFlora.com. Each time you visit the site or refresh the page, the image changes. Because they rotate at random, some images will recur multiple times before you see them all. It’s a Zen exercise. Mixes well with rum. There’s also nine footers at the bottom of the homepage.

Detail, Grandpa’s Ghost Stories (Atheneum Books, 1978). Yes, this little mise en scène is from a lighthearted book for young readers. Fun for the whole family! Bone apetit!

Every December 31 these guys paint their noses to match their chins and get royally toasted. Must be something to celebrate. But careful—apparently it can turn your teeth grey, or cause you to lose them altogether! Have a HAPPEE!

Our friend Takashi Okada of Tokyo has become the pre-eminent Floraphile in Japan. Besides being an avid customer of Jim Flora fine art prints, Takashi recently designed the Daisy Holiday CD package, which adapts Flora’s 1947 Green Mansions resort brochure illustration (licensed from the Flora estate). Additional Flora elements appear on the jewel case inlay and in the booklet. Here’s a Tokyo record store display flush with Flora. If you don’t live in that part…

NOW AVAILABLE: the next four works in the Primer for Prophets screen print series. Cool Flora illustrations of the American nuclear family (and their weird pets) during the 1950s, when donuts and cake were considered essential nutrients, little girls could multi-task with brushes, and dogs craved beer! The images derive from a 1954 trade-only alphabet booklet that Flora illustrated for CBS-TV. The second set of prints features KISSED, COOKED, GROOMED, and QUAFFED. Edition of 100…

Detail, Green Mansions resort brochure, 1947Full work reproduced in The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora

Ruth Seidler, of Brooklyn’s JollyBe Bakery: “Devils food cake with hazelnut dacquoise and chocolate/hazelnut buttercream. Design inspired by the 1960’s [sic] jazz record jacket designs of Jim Flora.”

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

Some long overdue updates at JimFlora.com, including recent News briefs on the homepage, a one-sheet about the just-released limited edition Jazz Quintet fine art print, and a glimpse at the forthcoming Primer For Prophets silk-screen series on the Merchandise page. On the Miscellany page, you can download a pdf of a terrific January 2008 article (“Lowbrow Genius”) about Flora that appeared in Knoxville Metro Pulse. The article also appears online, but the print version (as…

Self-Portrait: The Artist at Lunchtime pen & ink on paper, June, 1998

Untitled sketches and figures from sketchbook, ca. early 1950s. The hungry fellow on the bottom looks familiar: