PETERHEAD POWER STATION PROJECTS. 1978.

N.p.(Edinburgh): Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall and Partners, 1978
21 x 30cm, 43pp plus printed glossy covers. A set of proposals by Finlay for architectural and sculptural interventions in the Peterhead Power Station which was to be build. The book was published by the architects as part of the proposals for the site. The drawings by Ian Appleton are given very clear explanations by Finlay - proposed are a wall of glass floats, four stones with carves words indicating the theoretical structure of classical and other universes in fours (suits of cards, directions, elements, primary colours), a maze made out of fishermen's nets (which we would dearly like to see realised), a large stone carving of the SEA'S WAVES'S SHEAVES (which was installed elsewhere eventually), a concrete poem TERRA/MARE to be carved in Caithness Stone, various inscriptions of natural boulders (including SEApink) to be placed on site which remind one of the later PEBBLES series of works, a sundial with the inscriptions Rete Luci Tentu/A Net for the Light, names of fishing boats carved into garden slabs, a large sculpture of a bronze oar placed on a hill far away from the station which would visually reflect the chimney of the newly built station and also be a sort of sundial gnomon along with a site layout which shows the various shadows cast by the oar on the landscape at different times, a large rock with "It's Scotland's Atlantis" carved on it (with the word oil crossed out) an unusually political work by Finlay, and, finally, a carved oar into the face of a heap of sawn boulders (referencing `Ullysses).
To the best of our knowledge none were actualised. The sheer number of wonderful ideas proffered by Finlay for this project is quite astonishing.
This is a wonderful book although the style of the architectural drawings are strange for a Finlay collaboration - one suspects he did not choose the artist.
Murray places this book in amongst other artist's books by Finlay but we have recategorised it as a "proposal" as it clearly is just that and because of the style of the book it does not feel or look like a Finlay publication. This is a rarity and very hard to find. VG+.

MR AISLABIE’S GARDEN. 1981. INCLUDES THE MONTEVIOT PROPOSAL (1979)

Leeds: New Arcadians, 1981 21 x 29.8cm, 28pp plus wrappers. The first publication by the New Arcadian's imprint released to correspond with the exhibition "Mr Aislabie’s Gardens" at Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Art Gallery however the book is notable for being the first and only publishing of Finlay's The Monteviot Proposal (1979) - a facsimile of Nicholas Sloan's drawings and text for a large scale renewal of the Lothian Estates in Monteviot. The nine page proposal not only calls for the reclamation of a woodland pool, but the planting of trees and various pillar-flutes and provision of picnic-sites in the form of glades. A scarce publication. JOINT: 30 x 21cm, 1pp mimeograph subscription form for the New Arcadians journal. Slight edge wear.

A GATEWAY TO A GROVE. 1985.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
25 x 29cm, black on green folder lithograph in folder content of two lithographs after drawings by Michael Harvey of the proposed stone gateway and a textual explanation thus: 'Implicit in the column is the natural tree, which was likewise inhabited by its nymph or dryad. Here, in place of the column, there is the pilaster, and the dryads are present in the 'distanced' form of the text derived from J.K.Lavater's 'Physiognomical Fragments' (1802). The design is based on that for a garden gateway by the Elizabethan architect Indigo Jones."

SIX PROPOSALS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF STOCKWOOD PARK NURSERIES. 1986. SIX PRINTS IN FOLDERS.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
Six separate prints - each 27 x 34cm in unprinted folders and outer printed folder. One of 250 copies.
Each print in this portfolio reproduces a drawing or watercolour in one colour for Finlay's six proposals for the garden nurseries in Luton. Each proposal is a definition of a word associated with open nature such as "Flock" but with a classical Greek twist. Drawings were by Gary Hinks.
Ref: Murray 6.18.

THE TEMPLE OF BARA. 1986.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
41.5 x 24.0cm, blue, red and black on white offset lithograph with a drawing by Mark Stewart of a porposed monument to celebrate the martyr Bara "the little drummer boy". Bara had been killed trying to squash the anti-revolution Vendée war and was killed by royalist counter-revolutionaries, supposedly while he was shouting "Long live the Republic!". His body was interred at the Panthéon along with other national heroes.
Clearly the Pantheon was not enough as Finlay proposed this bandstand which has architectural details that look like the side drum carried by Bara and a huge republican cockade.
One of 300 printed. Slight marking (early foxing?) to the white paper at top edge else VG.

A PROPOSAL FOR A MONUMENT TO JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU. 1986.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
27.5 x 50.5cm offset lithograph folding print in original printed folder. The drawing of a landscape by Gary Hincks is printed in such a way that the unfolded card reveals a proposed large public sculpture - an optical illusion of a "vase" shape cut out from a wall with "JJR" painted bottom left. The cut-away allows more of the wild landscape to be shown. Limitation not known. VG+ in like folder.

4 COLONNES, 8 AFFICHES POUR L’ABBAYE CISTERCIENNE DE L’EPAU. ETE, 1986.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986 Original printed folder 64.5 × 42.5cm, content of nine poster prints, each of 64 x 42cm, 1pp. A colophon/title page is joined by eight textual sheets with quotations from the speeches of Louis-Antoine Saint-Just, interspersed with aphorisms by Finlay composed as "Imaginary Speeches for the revolutionary". The portfolio was published on the occasion of the exhibition "L'Art et le Sacre Aujourd hui" at the Cistercian Abbey in L'Epau, France, where the texts were intended to be installed on four columns inside the abbey building. During the heroic anti-clericalism of the French revolution the Abbey was transformed into something far more useful - an agricultural outbuilding surrounded by gardens.
This is both a print portfolio but also a proposal for an architectural installation - hence we have placed it in the the appropriate section here which in fairness to Murray he also places it as 6.20.

A PROPOSAL FOR THE FURKA PASS 1987.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990 35x 27.7cm, 1pp b/w broadside. Folded twice as issued. A proposal for a public work at the famous Furka Pass in Switzerland - Finlay suggests the Swiss artist Hodler's signature be inscribed on a stone as if the artist is "signing" the landscape that he so often pictured in his work. The broadside reprints a text by Wouter Weijers and three small drawings by Kathleen Lindsley. One of only 200 copies published, this is in VG+.

A PROPOSAL FOR THE ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON CLUB. 1987.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
27 × 27cm, black and cream offset lithograph on thick paper in original printed paper folder.
Finlay's proposal for a monument to the Scottish writer was a plaque on rough stone to be set amongst a grove of birch trees. The plaque was to have a "one word poem" on it - "A MAN OF LETTERS. / R.L.S./1850 - 1894". The obvious wit being the use of the capital letters RLS which Stevenson was often referred to by reflected by the term "man of letters" which means someone involved in the literary world.
Fine in like folder.
Unlike some of Finlay's proposals this work was installed in 1989 in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens but the original birch trees died and were replaced.
The Public Monuments and Sculpture Association Edinburgh Sculpture Project notes: "Unfortunately, the original birches did not thrive, and were replaced a few months later so that the tree does not line up with the base as Finlay intended. Here, the classical tradition of architecture is returned to its roots in the tree." Still it is one of the very best of Finlay's public art works (unlike the awful fruit baskets at Hunter's Square at the Tron Church only a mile away)

A REMEMBRANCE OF R.L.S. 1987.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
58.0 x 39.5cm, offset lithograph print in original printed folder. The putative monument's elevation and plan by Gary Hincks is printed one above the other.
Finlay's proposal for the work included five straight stemmed silver birch trees planted amongst cobbles and a "tree-column base" at the bottom of the middle tree: tree-column bases were a sculptural innovation by Finlay where the tree could continue to grow (the base was a semi-circle allowing expansion to the back) but the base of the tree would have a permanent stone marker. The base in this proposal was planned to have the letter's R.L.S. - the capitals that Robert Louise Stephenson was often known by.
Finlay regarded the use of the birches symboling of Stephenson's interest in the Scottish landscape and the neo-classical base as a reference to RLS's childhood association with Edinburgh's New Town. The installation was eventually installed in Princes Street Gardens but the birches didn't flourish and had to be later replaced slightly incorrectly.
One of 200 copies released - VG+.

A SHADED PATH. 1987.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
10.2 × 47. 5cm, 4pp single sheet of paper in in unprinted paper folder. The sheet when opened is 10.2 × 95cm. B/w offset lithograph with a proposal for a path entirely made of bricks with the word "Virgil" on them, on the left are texts - the first is a quotation which says "With only slight exaggeration one / might say that Virgil 'discovered' the evening..." / Erwin Panofsky, the rest are a description of the proposed path of 78 clay bricks and a note that "The path is no for the foot to walk on but for the mind to follow..." and a reference to the minimalism of Carl Andre's Equivalence works building to an "elegiac classicism". Virgil, of course, was Dante's guide to the underworld. VG condition.

A REMEMBRANCE OF ANNETTE. THE RUSCHHAUS PROPOSAL. 1987.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
four gr 13.8 × 15cm, outer folder with printed tipped on label and inside a 9pp (printed recto only) accordion folded sheet with drawings of four gravestones and two plans of the installation for a memorial garden for Annetee von Droste-Hulshoff (1797 - 1848), a 19th-century German writer and composer. The drawings were by Gary Hincks. This is one of two booklets relating to the proposals for a memorial. Unusually for Finlay's proposals both publications might be regarded as artist's books in this format but we have placed them in the same section that the Wild Hawthorn Press used for their listings. VG.

Shopping cart0
There are no products in the cart!
Continue shopping