Filed Under: "monsters"

One of many—a recurring Flora motif. There’s something jazz-like about these images, as if the artist were jamming on a canvas, creating rhythmic design. This untitled 10 x 8 tempera, discovered in a sketchbook, dates from the early to mid-1960s. There are dozens of sketchbooks in the collection, spanning the early 1940s to the month of Flora’s death in July 1998. Aside from pen and pencil project drafts, the books contain numerous fully rendered (and…

Flora did some mind-bending works in the 1990s — more curiously sinister than his work in the 1980s (IMHO). Quetzlcoatl [sic] Returns is an acrylic on stretched canvas (15″ x 30″) rendered within a year of the artist’s death. Flora, who lived in Mexico in 1950-1951, was a longtime enthusiast of Latin American folkways.

Detail from untitled painting, ca. 1960sAnother detail appears here

Detail, Grand Opening Migraine, a.k.a., Behind the Green Door (both titles penciled on reverse)painting, ca. 1974

Waltz Time, pen and ink on card stockn/d (early 1990s), titled in pencil

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:

Long overdue. Sorry. Not that anyone was expecting apologies. Please visit. Lots of new content: 63rd Street fine art print page; Fantagraphics Gallery exhibit poster; more LP covers that are commonly mistaken for Flora designs; and a progress report on the Primer for Prophets series. The Railroad Town page has been updated. We also corrected typos, fixed broken links, and rearranged the furniture. You almost wouldn’t recognize the place, except that it’s still populated with…

Untitled pen & ink sketch, ca. 1940. I detect the influence of Daniel Johnston. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Never mind.

A new limited edition, archival-quality, large-scale fine art print of Jim Flora’s late-1950s tempera 63rd Street is now on eBay for a 10-day auction. An edition of ten has been produced by Flora historian/archivist Barbara Economon. The print now listed (10/10) is the only copy from the edition that will be auctioned in 2007, and the sale price of remaining prints will be higher than the winning bid. If you’ve got questions about the edition,…

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