Sketchbooks

THE FLORA ARCHIVE contains dozens of sketchbooks from the 1930s to the 1990s. They comprise a mindblowing museum of raw ideas and—in some cases—fully realized works. Dozens of such sketches were included in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora and The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, but there are thousands of pen and pencil sketches, and several volumes would be required to catalog the best. Besides early drafts of Flora’s album covers, rough drawings of his paintings, and outlines of his children’s books, the sketchbooks reveal the free-flowing hand and nimble mind of a creative soul at play—the art laboratory.

untitled, early 1940s

untitled, early 1940s

untitled, early 1940s

untitled, 1950s

“Dog Dyer,” 1950s

“Jam Session,” early 1940s