Geneve: Galerie Marika Malacorda, 1989
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp - typographic announcement card for a solo show, verso gallery details. A mailed example with hand written address but else VG+.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
38 x 45cm, black and cream on white laid paper - the image by Gary Hincks is of a grove of trees around a classical temple after WIlliam Stukely. The definition of Grove is "an irregular peristyle" and a quote from Milton. The pristyle is the corridor between a colonnade and the wall of the inner building - hence the definition here suggests the trees are creating a further group of columns around the building. We do not know the date of this work - wee suspect the late 80s. VG+.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1989)
33.5 x 48.5cm, printed folder with calligraphic text by John Nash. Content of seven 33.5 x 48.5cm, 1pp lithographs in folder. Each work is one of Finlay's later "definitions" works - the structure being that of a word such as GROVE followed by a poetic definition and then a longer quotation from a classical source using the word in a manner that reflects the definition. For instance:

PEACE n. according to St. Ignatius of Loyola the simplicity of order

War on the castles, PEACE to the cabins
Slogan of the French revolutionary armies.

All elements fine in like folder.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
13 x 9.1cm, 4pp light brown outer folder. Internally a 13 x 9.1cm, 4pp sheet with a poem

Sundial
The motto is silent.
The shadow speaks.

The poem emphasises that the true importance on a sundial is the shadow of the gnomon and not the carvings added to it as decoration. The drawing on the cover was by Kathleen Lindsley.
This was one of a series of "poems in folders". VG+.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
12 x 24cm, unprinted white envelope with sticker closure content of eight different adhesive stickers - sizes vary due to poor cutting post printing but all are c. 14 x 11.5cm, printed red and black. The stickers are all inspired by sayings or events of the French revolution around the year 1793. These were distributed as campaign materials for use by supporters of Finlay during his disputes with Strathclyde regional Council over the rating of Finlay's Garden Temple (which they claimed was an art gallery whereas Finlay stated it was a religious building". All unused, The sealed envelope has been opened using scissors and not too neatly. Not found in Murray.

...

Denville: Artforum (Volume XXVII No. 8), April 1989 26.8 x 26.8cm, unpaginated (c. 300pp) plus wrappers. A single number of the long running art journal which has an original page work by Boltanski (joint with Annnette Messager) on pages 126 - 129. Two b/w images of children with stuffed toys (chosen by Boltanski) are reflected in two colour images by Messager which use later examples of the toys to create new photographs. This is a very unusual joint work by the lovers. VG+.
Reference: Flay Catalogue Page 182.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. 6 x 9.6cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on green card with a text discussing the difference between a poems subject ("about a thing") and the poem itself (which IS a thing). Semiology for beginners. VG+....

London: Coracle, 1989
12 x 17.5cm, 60pp plus pictorial boards. A festschrift for Jonathan Williams's 60th birthday. More than three dozen contributors include: Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gael Turnbull, Glen Baxter, R.B. Kitaj, Thomas A. Clark, Richard Caddel, Roy Fisher, Charles Tomlinson, Basil Bunting, Eric Mottram, and Sandra Fisher.
Finlay's contribution is a single page:

Aram Saroyan pays Homage
to Jonathan Williams
on his 60th Birthday.

undoubtedly
avant-
garde

Aram Saroyan was known for his minimalist works and Finlay here parodies the style in honour of his friend Williams. VG+.

...

Little Sparta: Committee of Public Safety/Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1989) 2.8 x 21.6cm, 4pp. Artist's card with a text:

1989: BICENTERNAIRE DE LA REVOLUTION FRANCAISE
1990: LA LIBERTE DE CELEBRER 1789.

The year after most people define the beginning after the French Revolution the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789) was passed by the National Constituent Assembly thus giving citizens the right of free speech. Finlay's card celebrates that occasion which is usually ignored - putting it on an equal status as a highlight of world history. VG+. ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
11.4 x 8.9cm, 4pp. Artist's card with a drawing of an abstracted moorland/estuary (very similar to the colourful images used in From 35 One Line Poem postcards published earlier by Finlay - and the text "Birds fly, Waterfoul Ply" - one having the air above the water, the other the water and the moorland but the latter being compared to boats "plying" their trade. Strictly speaking ply means to move regularly over an area or to work steadily - something both boats and land birds tend to do. VG+.

...

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