Filed Under: "music"

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…

This is a test. Go here. In the green menu at the left, click “request a song.” Select a letter (or a number) at the top — any one. Select an artist — any artist. One you know, one you don’t — it’s just a drill. (Caveat: a band whose name begins with “The” appears under “T.” Hence, there are more “T” artists than any other letter.) Click on album title (not cover thumbnail). Request…

Extending the Flora album cover tradition, contemporary designers have been licensing Jim Flora images for CDs. At JimFlora.com, we’ve launched a gallery of recent digital releases that have been Floradized. Interested in using Flora art for your CD? Just ask.

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

UPDATE 4/25: Two prints sold. Now available via JimFlora.com. The Incredible Flutist is an uncirculated 1953-54 record cover illustration by Flora that was intended for a 7-inch RCA Victor EP. Jim Flora Art LLC is offering two fine art prints on eBay at a launch price. According to a purchase order discovered in the Flora archives, the illustration was commissioned by RCA in late 1953, but there’s no indication the work was finished, accepted, or…

Trio, pen & ink with felt-tip marker on paper, ca. 1993-94

7″ EP, 1954 (probably not released on LP)

A new Flora archival-quality fine art print has been released by Jim Flora Art LLC. The untitled 1943 work, which depicts five colorful musicians, is unofficially referred to as “Jazz Quintet.” An edition of ten (10) has been produced. One print (#9/10) is now listed on eBay at a Buy-It-Now price of $200 (+ s/h). After this print is sold, prices on remaining prints will increase (starting at $300) until the edition is sold out….

Sketches for RCA Victor LP cover, 1955; final design below:

Detail, March 1943 Columbia-Okeh Popular Recordsmonthly flyer; panel: Harry James

Now on eBay: The “Bubbly Buddies” design (above, adapted from an early 1950s Christmas montage painted by Flora), and “Bix and Tram” (below, featuring caricatures from a 1947 Columbia Records album cover).

Jim Flora Art LLC just launched the latest in our line of upper body haute couture: the Jim Flora “Happy Horns” t-shirt. The illustration—a jazz buff making cozy with a clarinet and sax—originally appeared on a 1942 record shop retail banner showcasing “Columbia Album Favorites.” Our previous shirts were digitally printed. The “Horn Buddies” shirt is our first silk-screened piece of fashionwear. We also modified a previous shirt: the “Hot Notes” design (featuring a 1941…