Filed Under: "paintings"

One of over 40 pocket-sized tempera illustrations Flora rendered in the mid-1940s for an apparently never-published edition of Thomas Wolfe‘s Look Homeward, Angel. Illustrations survive for all chapters save one (chapter 30), as well as for the title page, colophon (above), and the book’s three sectional divides. No documentation exists in the archives explaining the destiny or disposition of the series. Several illustrations were published in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora; the rest…

The Rover Boys, tempera on board, ca. 1943. The work was presented as a wedding gift to Clara Gee Kastner and Stanley Stamaty, Flora’s classmates and friends from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. (Clara and Stan are the parents of cartoonist Mark Alan Stamaty.) No idea if the triple-headed figure was intended to portray the Rover lads of literary fame. The work was reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora A pen and…

Our latest Jim Flora fine art print is White Block Quadrupeds (an informal name for the above untitled work). WBQ is an uncirculated, early 1940s Flora painting which depicts an inscrutable panorama of disconnected facial features, headless quadrupeds, and a fanged horse. The original was painted in tempera on a thick rectangular block of wood the artist had first swathed in a coat of white. The stylized figures echo motifs found in the artist’s work…

One of a quartet of 5-1/2″ x 6-3/4″ temperas on artist board, each identical except for color scheme, presumably entitled Mardi Gras, based on figure studies by that name. The undated studies (sketches and refined tapestry) and the other three variants, which reflect Flora’s early 1950s style, were reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora. The spots on the above image indicate moisture discoloration, sometimes euphemistically referred to as an “aging artifact.”

Middle of three tiers from sketchbook tempera, ca. 1963-65

Flora would have turned 95 today. His centennial is on the horizon. The above tempera and pencil illustration on card stock, found in the archives, dates from the early- to mid-1940s, the original purpose unknown. The re-purposing is known: Happy Birthday, Mr. Flora. From “the editors.”

Duos, a collection of works by Charles Wuorinen composed for two musicians, is now available from Albany Records. The untitled Flora cover art, licensed for this release (by Howard Stokar), is from an early- to mid-1960s sketchbook.

business card, Davis Delaney Printing (ca. 1950s) adapted pencil and tempera figures from sketchbook

Detail, The First Five Years, acrylic on wood, ca. early 1970s. The second of six horizontal tiers depicting incidents during the artist’s childhood. Exactly what these figures represent—good question.

Undetermined media (framed, under glass): print with touch-up, or black tempera, ca. 1968, detail. Previous detail posted on August 20.

Untitled tempera on card stock, dated 6/42. Hydra-headed mutants abound during this transitional period in Flora’s life. Just a few months earlier he had departed his native Ohio and relocated to Connecticut to take a job with the Columbia Records art department under Alex Steinweiss. Actually, Flora never outgrew multi-headed mutants with bonus appendages. They recur in every period of his artistic life.

Detail, untitled tempera, ca. 1950-51. Above are eight of about 65 individual modules arrayed on the entire work. The elements are stylistically reminiscent of the Railroad Town woodcut, and cubicle art is a recurrent Flora motif.