03 Aug

Posted at 21:24h in James Lee Byars

n.p.: n.p., n.d. (1986?) 26 x 19.5cm, 1pp black on white offset. A single sheet reproducing a work by Byars in honour of Beuys. We cannot find a reference for this work but it may have been made after Beuys died suddenly in January 1986. Byars and Beuys were friends for nearly 20 years and regularly corresponded. This has stapled holes along the top and some closed tears and former creases. It was found stapled into one of James Collins' diaries (1986) in his archives. ...

30 Jul

Posted at 09:12h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
23 × 18cm, black on grey printed outer folded with title content of two 23 × 18cm offset lithographs. The first is printed on light mustard-yellow paper and has the sole text "glades of sunlight" at the top and the second "forests of cloud" at the bottom printed on brown thick paper.
One of Finlay's innovative colour paper prints where the medium utilised is as important as the words found upon the page. This is a visual poem in some sense that the paper colours suggest that scene of sunlight breaking though the fog (the bright yellow paper is placed in front of the dark brown sheet in the folder and is more dominant to the eye.
This is one of only 150 such prints printed. VG+.

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27 Jul

Posted at 15:50h in Proposals

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.

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22 Jul

Posted at 17:44h in EPHEMERA

Eindhoven: n.p. (Van Abbemuseum?), 1986
15 x 21cm, 2pp . Postcard issued with an image of the title shadowplay installation that was shown in the Van Abbemuseum and is in their permanent collection. VG+.

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18 Jul

Posted at 16:00h in Miscellany

London: Country Life, July 18 1996
31.5 x 23.5cm, 96pp plus original wrappers. A single number of this popular journal which has 4pp (mostly of large colour photographs by Clive Boursnell) of Little Sparta and an article by Alan Powers. The cover of the magazine also show the Present Order is the Disorder of the Future work in situ in the grounds of the farm. Slight wear to wrappers else VG+.

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09 Jul

Posted at 10:05h in POSTERS

N.p.: n.p., 1986
60 x 42cm, full colour offset lithographic poster showing the title artwork (after a photograph by Andre Morin). Folded else VG++.
<BR...

07 Jul

Posted at 09:42h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
9 x 10.5cm, 4pp folding card with a line drawing of a pear by Stephanie Kedik, printed black on light brown with the following texts on the left and right inner folds - on the left::
very fine
late cherry

and on the right:
fine later
large pear

The references from from Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book that lists his activities in two different gardens during the 1766 to 1824 period (the gardens it should be noted, in a great part, had their upkeep from slaves). Finlay's texts remind the reader of the physical similarity of the two plump fruits but also they differentiate the two gardens of the President's life - in fact the first entry in Jefferson's diary is a description of his cherries and, later, he he writes about a 'Seckel Pear' at Monticello (his second house) claiming this variety "exceeded anything I have tasted since I left France, and equalled any pear I had seen there." The two poems therefore also represent the young and the old life of the gardener. VG+. Scarce.

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02 Jul

Posted at 10:11h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
7 x 7cm, 4pp folding card with a poem by Finlay based on a newspaper report on the repairs made to wells which gave the poet his last line.

wreathing of rockets<BR. dusting of dreadnoughts
greening of gun-sites
parading of panzers
dressing of wells

The lines all describe war machines being camouflaged - a common theme in Finlay which is a momento mori - death can be found in beauty. VG+.

...

24 Jun

Posted at 15:12h in Prints + Posters

Minneapolis : Phil Gallo at the Hermetic Press, 1986 28 x 40cm, yellow printed folder in the form of an envelope content of 5 "visual poems" on various papers:
1) A Discrete Sign on the Steinway., by Jonathan Williams. One of 130 copies.
2) My Lipstick.from His Lips.To Your Teeth, by Phil Gallo, edition limited to 100 copies.
3) EMPO POEM, by Karl Kempton, edition limited to 100 copies
4) Language, by Scott Helmes, edition limited to 100 copies
and Finlay's contribution:
5) Strawberry Hill "Precipices, Mountains.," by Ian Hamilton Finlay, edition limited to 140 copies. 35.5 x 17cm, 1pp. The print is a letterpress on deckled paper - which quotes Horace Walpole on his intent to create a "little Gothic Castle at Strawberry Hill". Below that quotation is a further quotation from Walpole (the son of the then British Prime Minister) describing the environment on Strawberry Hill namely "Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, rumblings" and the below that a final pairing of "Wild cats, Corsairs...

19 Jun

Posted at 14:52h in Exhibition Catalogues

London:British Museum Publications, 1986
24 x 19cm, 64pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue displaying a range of contemporary British medals. Finlay produced 6 different medals all of which are reproduced in b/w with details. VG+.

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09 Jun

Posted at 09:09h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Bonn: Bildkunst, 1986 15 x 10.5cm, 2pp postcard showing Beuys creating the aktion die "Wandlung" at Dokumenta 7 in 1982 on the front, verso publisher's details. The performance saw the artist melt down a copy of Czar Ivan the terrible's crown into a hare and the orb of the sun as symbols of trans-European peace. VG+. ...

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