The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora (2004) was some book, but it was supposed to be a one-shot deal. Then in 2005 the late commercial artist's family opened its stash--enough good stuff, Chusid imparts, for three more books. The first of those three draws primarily from what Chusid thinks is Flora's best period, the 1940s to the early 1960s, during which he put more wildness and violence into his work than he would allow in his later children's books and mainstream-magazine work. Since Flora's style is cartoonishly hieratic, there's nothing grim on view (well, maybe the Ben-Shahn-agit-propish "The Jealous Husband"); it's just that the pictures' extremely high spirits--whatever else they're doing, the figures in them seem to be jitterbugging--sometimes include a little mayhem. Besides more of Flora's Columbia Records, early magazine, and small-press work, this book includes 35 pages of previously unpublished sketches and completed pieces. Everything attests Flora's affinities to Picasso, Klee, Stuart Davis, the Mexican muralists, and especially Calder and Miro.
Real smiley stuff.
Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Synopsis
A follow-up to The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora presents a broad spectrum of his popular commercial work for some of the leading record labels of the 1940s, as well as his personal paintings, early 1940s musician caricature portraits from Columbia Records, photographs, personal keepsakes, prints, and more. Original.