Flora came from a South Tyrolean village that remained important to him as a point of reference throughout his life and where he is also buried. This was also confirmed by Ursula Ganahl-Flora, the artist’s widow. Flora said of his career: “I was born in Glurns, where I grew up in the midst of six siblings, was raised rather hastily and casually, was a difficult child and developed several interesting complexes, which have formed the basis of my business ever since.”
This quote can be found alongside numerous illustrations and articles by Karl-Markus Gauss, Thomas Seywald and Gottfried Gusenbauer in the exhibition catalogue, whose title picture “The Conversation of the Ravens” is one of the last works by the artist, who died in 2009. Flora’s universe of ghosts and harlequins, poets and sphinxes, secret agents, marionettes, rustic Tyroleans and Venetian plague doctors is revealed here in a condensed way.
The Raven and Paul Flora
Flora himself answered very prosaically why the raven motif is so closely linked to his work, as Seywald reports: “A white sheet, a black, intelligent animal, that’s an ideal combination. There’s nothing mysterious regarding them Buyers of my drawings sometimes want ravens, and so sometimes I draw them.”