Filed Under: "sex"

The Panic is On, pen & ink, 1990s, unpublished(No relation to the Nick Travis 1955 LP cover)

Today we introduce a new limited edition fine art print called TENEMENT K, whose residents are bawdy, musical, criminal, and/or exhibitionistic. Doesn’t matter if you’re rowdy, serpentine, or headless—the landlord will rent you a room. If you were a mutant miscreant, you’d be home by now. The previously unpublished and uncirculated work, which dates from the 1940s, is owned by a private collector who allowed us to have the work professionally photographed for print reproduction….

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…

Our newest Flora fine art print, G3 in Tampico, is available at JimFlora.com. The 1970 tempera (on board), titled by the artist in pencil on the reverse, sits in storage, previously unseen. The work had not previously been published or reproduced anywhere. Tampico is the main city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas (and the birthplace of legendary Space Age Pop maestro Esquivel); however, the significance of the Flora title (the “G” and “3” elements…

One-half of an undated black and white business card (mock-up) from the 1950s. At the time, though he lived in Rowayton CT, Flora shared an office (and probably an art studio) at 21 East 63rd Street in Manhattan. A classic tempera painting from the period caricatures the neighborhood. No copies of the printed version of this card exist in the Flora collection. The discoloration in the upper right is an aging artifact.

Detail, The Many Aspects of Love, tempera on board, mid-1990s (and pre-dated by a pen & ink drawing). Not a top-tier work, the above partial reflects the extended mayhem. While there’s plenty of vestigial Flora mischief (note demons in the head at left), works like The Many Aspects veer perilously close to self-parody. The complete work has not been published.

The full title of this undated (early- to mid-1940s) work is The Rape of the Stationmaster’s Daughter, a tempera on paper, titled in pencil on the reverse. It was reproduced in our second Flora anthology, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora, and its anatomically absurd actors were adapted by designer Laura Lindgren for the cover. In 2008 we issued a fine art print. A customer purchased a print last month and expressed admiration at…

Here are two tempera illustrations discovered in an early- to mid-1960s sketchpad in the Flora collection. The more refined of the two works has a title: Bessie Smith, presumably a vignette of the soulful, bawdy 1920s and ’30s Empress of the Blues. The pianist (great hat!) is unidentified, and we can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of Smith performing with her nipples exposed: The second work, pages away in the same sketchpad, is untitled but…

In an art class called “Soft Sculpture” at the University of Washington (Seattle), students were instructed to transform a favorite painting into food sculpture. SunShine McWane adapted Flora’s untitled 1950-51 tempera we casually refer to as “Gunfight on the Roof” (original work below). The resulting mixed-media delicacy, entitled “Cheese City,” was completed in January 2009. The materials—ingredients, actually—used by McWane include cheese (cheddar, Swiss, Colby, jalapeño jack), acrylic paint, plastic (GI Joe figures), one wire…

This cutaway view of a cruise ship affords a glimpse into cabin and deck activities—some naughty, some nice. The undated, unpublished pen & ink on tablet paper probably dates from Flora’s “late ship period” around 1988-90, when he was transitioning away from maritime motifs and back to music, architecture, portraits, and landscapes. His large acrylic ship canvases rendered during the 1980s were more lifelike than the cartoonish styles for which he’d been renowned as a…

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