Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (c. 1983)
38.5 x 50.5cm, red on white offset lithograph. The quotation "LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH'ENTRATE!" is from Dante's Inferno and is the famous line over the entry to hell: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter!". As such it is a warning - and here also Finlay has appropriated it as a threat to Strathclyde Region's lackies and even Sheriff Officers during the Little Sparta War.
One of a number of campaigning placards reproduced as poster prints. The warning is intensified by the use of a bright red. We cannot quite date this work but it is likely to be c. 1983.

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This is a fully developed handmade prototype for a tea-cozy mulltiple, approx. it was never actually put into production but made in the early 1980s on Finlay's instruction.
Constructed of hand- stitched, quilted, mauve satin in the shape of a battleship the letters and numbers “SSN 571” in silver fabric and are sewn onto both sides.
Three cylindrical finger-like pieces of mauve satin protrude from the top perhaps suggesting some type of armour and/or navigation devices or even a missile launch; there are two multi-colored patches sewn to each side of the front suggesting windows.
There is a small WHP identification sticker loosely adhered at the inside the top of the prototype.
To the best of our knowledge, this unique fabric sculpture, acquired by Trevor Winkfield from Ian Hamilton Finlay in the summer of 1983, was not produced as an edition.
The reference letters identify this work as representing HMS Nautilius - the first ever submarine powered by nuclear power. There is a lovely correspondence between the submarine body surrounding the energy source and a tea cosy with warm tea at its heart fuelling the body corporeal.

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Belper: Aggie Weston's, 1983
25 x 20cm, 16pp plus card covers. Single number of Stuart Mill's publication which is in fact a Finlay artist's book with drawings by Rod Gathercole. Each page has a different abstract drawing of undergrowth and epigrams below - such as:
Camouflage proverb: If the bush fits, wear it. VG+

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press (?), Friday 17 June 1983
21 x 30cm, 2pp black on off-white newsprint. A parody newspaper with humorous articles about the dispute between Strathclyde Region and Ian Hamilton Finlay over rates for the Garden temple at Little Sparta. Spurious claims of Little Sparta having a "secret weapon: the "Tucker Gun" based on a 19060s abstract sculpture by WIlliam Tucker. The act of postering the Scottish Arts Council building is also reported on with an image of one of the posters gummed onto the columns outside the building. US troops are also reported to have landed in the Pentland Hills and are "preparatory to advancing into Strathclyde Region" and "taking over key points such as...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
17.8 x 12.8 cm , 2pp black on white artist's card with a photograph of Little Sparta by Norman Lockhart. In the reverse is a definition work: "CAMOUFLAGE, n. a presentation, a concealment".
The photographic image of the buildings are obscured (camouflaged) by foliage hanging from the trees in closeup. This is a common theme in Finlay how the placement of an object or a weapon in vegetation is a distant and subtle symbol of life being reminded of the ever potential of death. VG+.

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Koln: Edition Heinz Holtmann, 1983 15.5 x 21.5cm, 2pp publicity card announcing the release of the title edition of photographs of Beuys' Goldhase aktion in Kassel where he melted a gold faux crown down and smelted a sun and a hare as symbols of peace and cross-Europe unity. The front of the card shows Zoa's photograph overprinted with a small golden circle, verso publisher's details. VG+. ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
15.2 x 13cm, 1pp black on white artist's card with a drawing by Mark Stewart. The full title of of the card is "WITHIN THE SYSTEM OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE THE LEAST PART OF AN ELEVATION HAS THE ABILITY TO MAKE THE WHOLE KNOWN" a quotation from Quatremere de Quncy. The drawin is of the Dovecot at Littel Sparta with a gun barrel pushing out of double doors that seem to be made out of stacked hay bales creating a tank of sorts out of the building. The low lying gun barrel certainly could make the whole known if fired.
There is another card DOVECOTE from 1983 which shows the whole of the building form a distance with the barrel hard to see. VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1984
20.9 x 14.8cm, 1pp. Two drawings of the dovecote at Little Sparta (by John Tetley) are shown without any text or explanation or even attribution. The second drawing is a detail of the bullding that appears to show a gun barrel sticking out of the double doors of the former dovecot. In truth the drawing isn't very clear in close up and this work seems somewhat out of place with Finlay's usual aesthetic apart from the general feeling that Little Sparta needed to be militarised after the initial raid by Strathclyde region. IN some sense the building has become an immobile tank.
Murray places this card at 1984 but out of order in his list (it is in the middle of a number of other cards published in 1983) and another version of the image with a drawing by Mark Stewart was also printed in mid 1983.. The exact date cannot be ascertained for sure so we have allocated this to 1983 for the proceeding reasons. VG+.

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