Filed Under: "paintings"

Salt Pond – Block Island, tempera and pencil on paper, 1963. This previously uncirculated work was first published in our 2009 anthology, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora (the only one of our three Flora compendiums currently in print). The work reflects Flora’s love of rustic maritime locales and things that float. Block Island, Rhode Island is located off the southern coast of the state. Wiki contains the following about the saline pond: Great…

Tempera on heavy stock (actually, painted on the reverse of an oversized 1943 Columbia Records convention program; clean paper was rationed and scarce during World War II). The previously uncirculated and largely unseen work was first published in our third anthology, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora. We issued a limited edition fine art print of the work in 2009. The identity of Charlie remains unknown.

Artmuse.com recently issued two new—and low-cost—Jim Flora limited edition fine art prints. The above, based on a 1964 untitled and previously uncirculated work discovered in the Flora collection, has been casually tagged Brain Map to differentiate it from countless other works left unnamed by the artist. The work was first published in our 2007 Fantagraphics anthology, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora. The print can be purchased in several different sizes at various price…

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…

The above tempera on illustration board by Flora was recently purchased by a fabulous financial blogger. The Rube Goldberg-like catalytic pipeline originally appeared in the December 1964 issue of Fortune magazine accompanying an article entitled “A New Turn in Taxes.” Most of Flora’s work-for-hire illustrations from the 1940s and 1950s cannot be located, having been kept (or disposed of) by client art directors. Judging by what’s in the Flora family collection, starting in the late…

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…

Keystone Crowd, a 1968 tempera on thick stock that hasn’t yet made it into one of our Flora anthologies. Unpublished, uncirculated, previously unseen work currently sitting in storage. Pennsylvania is the Keystone State, but the artist’s title reference remains a mystery.

Today in 1914, James Royer Flora was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Above our guy is pictured relaxing at home in the late 1980s. Interesting juxtaposition of bold patterns, with hunting jacket, slacks and chair vying for focal primacy. Cameo in the upper right by the Fab Four, depicted in 1964, tho it appears to be a hand-rendered (probably not by Flora) replica of a famous photo. Flora’s daughter Julia provides some family context: I love…

Baba Yaga, pen & ink and oil pastel on paper, 14″ x 16″, 1996. Previously unpublished and uncirculated late life work (two years before the artist’s death). Wiki entry profiles a dangerous damsel: She flies around on a giant pestle or broomstick, kidnaps (and presumably eats) small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs.

Hot Stove League entry: illustration (one of several) from “The Big Leagues Are Killing Baseball,” LOOK magazine, April 15, 1958. The above image is an original painting. Many of Flora’s early commercial illustrations exist only as printed reproductions, the original art either kept by the magazines or thrown out. When I interviewed Flora in 1998, I asked him about the whereabouts of his commercial originals. “They would reproduce it,” I queried, “but they wouldn’t think…

Untitled, undated (ca. mid-1960s) ship in cross-cut view. Previously unpublished and uncirculated work (rendered in tempera and pencil) discovered in sketchpad.

Above: rejected attempt at a Little Man Press logo, ca. 1939-1940, discovered in early sketchbook. The experiments continued: Eventually Flora and his LMP partner Robert Lowry settled on this design: