Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
19.3 x 6.6cm, 1pp, red on white card. The illustration shows a series of drawings of French revolutionary style-drums with the text "Join the Saint-Just Vigilantes". The card is a rallying call for support much like a drum-roll might be. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, Summer 1983
Two 25.5 x 20.4cm, 1pp vintage xerox price list (as issued) for the Press stapled top left but specifically listing cards and books that Finlay regarded as related to the Little Sparta War. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
11.6 x 7.6cm , 10pp (single folded sheet printed on one side only) brown on white artist's card with two photographs by Andrew Griffiths of a tree that had recently been planted and another a fully grown - both have tree-column sculptures at their bases. The poem in the middle section reads:
A PLACEMENT
obeisance
and an excerpt from Finlay's "Detached Sentences on Gardening" which clarifies the idea that some items in a garden are like those of societies - some need to be fixed (in the sense of solidified) so that others can be placed (strategic decision-making).
The final section notes the Tree Column-Bases to be found in Little Sparta - one "Lycurge" and the other Saint-Just. The former was a Greek law-maker and the latter the stern deliverer of laws from the French Revolution. Finlay differentiates between the two by suggesting the Greek was more stable and civil while the latter more chaotic and dangerous. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.(1983?) 8.4 x 7cm, 8pp single folding card printed on one side only in blue and red on white. The first panel lists the publishing details, the second shows the ship that has reef knots that look like the decorations on the side of the drums of the revolutionary army - the boat is called The Littel Drummer Boy and the panel remembers Bara the martyr, the third panel has the name Viala with a tricolour ribbon - here memorialising the death of the young martyr Joseph Agricol Viala who tried to demolish a bridge while under attack and died calling for Liberty and finally, the text "Hommage A David" who was a third martyr to the Terrorists murdered in his bath. A card in honour of three Republican deaths. This example is signed "To Janet (Boulton) yours Gary (Hincks)" in blue and red crayon. VG+....
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
12.4 x 15.2cm, 1pp. A drawing of an installation of one of Finlay's Tree Column-Base dedicated to the French revolutionary Saint-Just in the garden of Little Sparta. Finlay notes that the tree is a Silver Birch (which has a noble and straight growing trunk) and that the plants around the base are strawberries (a passionate fruit one might argue due to colour and flavour). The base was an unturned capital of a Doric pilaster. Together this represents the character of the young incorruptible. The drawing was by Andrew Townsend. VG+.
...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
21 x 30cm, 1pp. An uncut example of a folding card with Finlay's definition of a Wildflower as a mean term. This card was meant to be folded with a pressed wildflower (added by the owner) inside. VG+.
...
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.
...
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.
...
Manchester: PN Review, 1983
29.5 x 21cm, 64pp plus wrappers. A single number of this poetry and literature review - here with a major article with 45 small b/w photographs and an anonymous text by (probably by Finlay). Useful and interesting documentation. VG+.
...
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+
...
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+.
...