jim-Flora_Bell-Island-at-Night

Bell Island At Night

350.00€

2011 (date of print)
1968 (date of original work)
Digital giclée print
Artist proof. Edition of 30
33 x 48 cm

Only 1 left in stock

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Description

This is a limited-edition, archival-quality fine art print of a 1968 Jim Flora painting entitled Bell Island at Night. Bell Island, part of Rowayton (Norwalk) CT, is a quaint enclave on Long Island Sound where Flora and his family lived from the mid-1940s until the artist’s death in 1998.

The original work, an idiosyncratic portrait of his neighborhood and neighbours, was titled by the artist in pencil on the reverse. Only thirty prints (+proofs) of Bell Island at Night were produced for this edition. Each print is authenticated on the reverse with the stamped seal of Jim Flora Art (a Flora family enterprise). Price of the prints in this limited edition will increase as the edition depletes.

The previously uncirculated work was first published in Flora’s book The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora. The prints, produced by Flora archivist Barbara Economon, have been meticulously replicated from the original work using state-of-the-art digital technology. A high-resolution scan was made of the original art, a tempera painting on heavy stock. All aspects of the original artwork have been retained, including brushstrokes, irregular color fill density, and the artist’s signature and date in the lower right. The reproduction includes minor aging artifacts which in no way detract from the overall impression.

The image area is 10-1/2″ high x 17-1/2″ wide and centered on an untrimmed 13″ x 19″ sheet. The unframed prints are on heavyweight (310g) mould-made William Turner stock, a natural white, 100% rag paper with a fine toothy surface manufactured by Hahnemühle, who are renowned for premium-grade archival papers.

The edition was produced using Epson UltraChrome K3 Pigment Ink Technology, resulting in brilliant, velvety color and offering excellent longevity and durability. Due to the fine art print’s higher-resolution process, as well as superior paper, inks, and quality control, the colors in the print appear brighter, crisper, and more vibrant than the online image. Online color appearance may vary slightly depending on your monitor settings.

Jim-Flora-1950s-photo-bioJim Flora, United States Of America, (1914 Bellefontaine, Ohio - 1998 Rowayton, Connecticut)

James (Jim) Flora is best-known for his wild jazz and classical album covers for Columbia Records (late 1940s) and RCA Victor (1950s). He authored and illustrated 17 popular children's books and flourished for decades as a magazine illustrator. At the time, few knew that Flora was also a prolific fine artist with a devilish sense of humor and a flair for juxtaposing playfulness, absurdity and violence. Cute — and deadly.

Flora's album covers pulsed with angular hepcats bearing funnel-tapered noses and shark-fin chins who fingered cockeyed pianos and honked lollipop-hued horns. Yet this childlike exuberance was subverted by a tinge of the diabolic. Flora wreaked havoc with the laws of physics, conjuring flying musicians, levitating instruments, and wobbly dimensional perspectives. Taking liberties with human anatomy, he drew bonded bodies and misshapen heads, while inking ghoulish skin tints and grafting mutant appendages. He was not averse to pigmenting jazz legends Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa like bedspread patterns. On some Flora figures, three legs and five arms were standard equipment, with spare eyeballs optional. His fine art works reflect the same comic yet disturbing qualities.

Flora once said that all he wanted to do was "create a little piece of excitement." He overshot his goal with much of his work.

Born in Bellefontaine, Ohio, in 1914, James Flora was trained at the Art Academy of Cincinnati (1936-39). After struggling as a commercial freelancer, in 1942 he moved to Connecticut after accepting a job in the Columbia Records art department. One year later the label appointed him art director. Flora revolutionized the look of Columbia's ads and retail circulars with his wild cartoonish illustrations. He was promoted several times, and though no longer art director, he began illustrating jazz album covers for the label in 1947. However, his executive chores with the company meant less opportunity to create art. In 1950, Flora resigned and moved to Mexico with his family.

After 15 months of exotic life south of the border, during which he and his wife created a mountain of art, Flora returned to Connecticut in 1951. He embarked on a lengthy and prosperous career as a freelance commercial artist, children's book author/illustrator, and album cover designer for RCA Victor. Despite the demanding deadlines, Flora found time to indulge his fine art impulses. He painted, sketched, created woodcuts, and made relief prints at home and during travels. Even in retirement, and particularly during the decade before his death in July 1998, he created an enormous body of work. For more information about Jim Flora Chusid and Economon have published three anthologies of his art with Fantagraphics Books: The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora, and The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora. La Fiambrera Art Gallery is proud to present James Flora’s mischievous art to public thru his fine art prints, serigraph prints, and woodcuts, by special arrangement with the Jim Flora Estate and co-archivists Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon.