Filed Under: "trees"

Perhaps the kid dropped his bag of trick-or-treat candy (and shed his costume) sprinting for safety. Illustration from introductory chapter of A Red Skel(e)ton in Your Closet, a 1965 anthology of “ghost stories gay and grim” selected for young readers by popular film & TV comedian Red Skelton. The book contains 21 interior illustrations which are uncredited, but Flora’s trademarks are unmistakable. The artist was under contract to Harcourt, Brace at the time, and in…

Acrylic on canvas, 1992. Irving Milfred “Miff” Mole was a legendary American jazz trombonist who first came to prominence in 1920s hot jazz. Tommy Dorsey called him “the Babe Ruth of the trombone.” Amid the painting’s colorful details, pay special attention to this great freakin’ tree:

Just released: a new Flora fine art print. The Big Bank Robbery (edition of 30) was reproduced from an undated tempera on board that reflects the nuances of Flora’s mid-1960s style. (The title was handwritten on the reverse.) The three-tiered tableau depicts colorful Flora mayhem: inscrutable monsters with misshapen features, Lego architecture, bug-eyed buildings, gumdrop color fills, and—yes—a bank robbery.

Pen & ink drawing, mid-1990s. This work was later adapted for a large colorful acrylic canvas. Both undated works reflect Flora’s mid-1990s techniques and media. The painting was recently photographed and is being considered for reproduction in our next anthology.

Detail, Peter and the Wolf album promotion,Columbia Coda, January 1953. Wolf on lunch break.

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…

Farm scene draft for The Day the Cow Sneezed (1957), Flora’s second children’s book. The landscape image is one of 80 scans Barbara and I recently acquired from the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota. We plan to reproduce a number of these early work pages in our third book of Floriana, currently being compiled and written. Among the artifacts — donated to the University by the artist — was an eye-popping version of…

Illustration, Coda, March 1944, for Columbia Records release By the Sleepy Lagoon, by Eric Coates conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra—available on a 12″ platter for the princely price of one buck.

Detail, Chioggia, early 1960s, acrylic

Cover detail, Morton Downey Sings Songs You Love (Camden CAE 245), 1954

montage by IC using early 1950s Flora details Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Merry Saturnalia, Happy Festivus—whatever.

Bottom half of two-tiered tempera found in sketchbook (ca. 1963-65). One of countless Flora works without a title.