JIM FLORA JAMES FLORA 1940s ORIGINAL WOODCUT PRINT

$

415

This is a rare early 1940s relief print of a JIM FLORA woodcut, printed by the artist over 60 years ago. It is being offered by Jim Flora Art LLC, a Flora family enterprise.

The work, featuring black ink on off-white paper, is untitled, unsigned, undated, and unframed. Flora biographers/archivists Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon have determined that the work reflects Flora's early 1940s style. Many of his paintings, sketches and commercial illustrations from that period featured disconnected body parts and pulled-apart faces linked with pin-lines, like a Calder mobile. Flora moved away from that visual technique by the late 1940s, a period during which it seems he was not producing woodcuts. He returned to woodcutting during his 15-month Mexican sojourn in 1950-51 and continued cutting blocks for another ten years. However, his blocks of the 1950s (e.g., Railroad Town, Sheffield Island, and Jugglers) exhibit more graceful contours and tighter cuts than the work offered here.

The block is irregularly shaped (see photo), but the image field is approximately 14" x 7", and the paper is 15-15/16" x 8-5/8" (the border has been cropped for this auction display). The impression includes lots of evocative wood grain markings. The print has been well-stored, is in excellent condition, and exhibits no fading. There is some minor foxing in the lower right-hand corner of the paper, but it is far away from the printed field and would not be visible when the print is matted and framed. The paper has no watermark, and the brand and grade of paper are unknown.

Seven black-on-white copies of this print are in the Flora archives, but this is the only one that will be auctioned at present. It is unknown whether an official edition was ever issued; if so, the number struck is unknown. Unlike dozens of vintage Flora prints for which blocks cannot be found, the original block for this print is in the Flora family archive. However, because of a split in the aged wood, the block might not be serviceable for further prints. (Just to confirm: we are auctioning a vintage PRINT, not the original BLOCK.)

Jim (James) Flora (1914-1998) was a noted commercial illustrator, children's book author and fine artist. He learned woodcutting at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in the late 1930s, and produced thousands of paintings, drawings, cuts, and sketches over a sixty-year career. He illustrated dozens of outlandish record album covers for Columbia and RCA Victor during the 1940s and 1950s. More information is available at JimFlora.com and JimFloraArt.com.