29 Jan

Posted at 20:39h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
22.2 x 20cm, full colour offset lithograph showing what purports to be a secret cachet between the members of the Saint)Just Vigilantes (the support group who helped Finlay resist the attempts by Strathclyde Region to seize artworks by Finlay in lieu of what they claimed was unpaid rates for the Temple at Little Sparta). The supposed message cannot be seen as the paper itself has a camouflage pattern. (In this joke Finlay preempts a current common internet meme that camouflage makes things invisible, but we digress.) A very good + example which does not have any lemon juice or any other secret message added to it as far as we know.

...

24 Jan

Posted at 16:52h in Page Works & Contributions

Noordwijk: MW Press 28, January 1983
38 x 28cm, 20pp. Artist's journal in the form of a tabloid newspaper which here has an 8pp contribution by Finlay in Nicolas Sloan's facsimile handwriting. Also has "an illustrated history of the Little Sparta Wars" along with a "diary" and reproductions of two letters. The paper is fragile due to being very cheap and is unavoidable browned. Folded for storage. Very scarce.

...

03 Jan

Posted at 14:20h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorne Press, 1983 20.3 x 15.5cm, 2pp artist designed postcard issued during the Little Sparta War - with on the reverse the announcement that the "GARDEN & the GARDEN TEMPLE are CLOSED" for the year of 1983 because of the "ASSAULT by Strathclyde Region". The card also notes that "NO-ONE CAN LEAVE THE ARMY EXCEPT AT THE END OF A WAR". VG+. Scarce....

05 Dec

Posted at 19:00h in Letters + Documents

30 x 21cm, 1pp original carbon copy on typing paper. A copy of a letter sent by Finlay to the publishing house Thames and Hudson.
Finlay claims that Thames and Hudson consider him to be anti-semite. He identifies this having arisen from Finlay submitting a book on Albert Speer's Spandau garden for publication. Finlay claims the publisher's stance is because of their "anti-Speerism" and Finlay says that recently deceased Albert Speer was a "dear friend". Finlay then posits a long and detailed argument that the publishers had entered the debate by stressing their jewishness when he had not. Finlay then attacks specifically Nikos Stangos who was an employee of T&H. Finlay claims he was initially enthusiastic about the Speer book then changed his mind suddenly. He is charged with acting unprofessionally and altering his position only after T&H rejected Finlay publicly.
Finally Finlay threatens legal action.
This is a difficult letter as Finlay's argument is a sophisticated one - on the surface attacking jewishness is evidence of being anti-semite but Finlay argues he only raised T&H jewish roots after they brought the public's attention to it and therefore it was an area of debate that was legitimate. The letter is borderline sophistry - it is clear that Finlay was not anti-semitic or nazi - but his willingness to defend people near to the National Socialist Party like Speer opened him up to attack. Some of those attacks were very biased and unfair (one can see deliberate misrepresentation in Catherine Millet for instance) but it is perhaps understandable how some might misunderstand Finlay's position.

...

04 Nov

Posted at 18:54h in Letters + Documents

25 x 20cm, original carbon copy on typing paper. A letter sent by Finlay to members of the press "drawing their attention to the third and fifth paragraphs of the enclosed letter" .
This was the covering letter that accompanied a xerox letter from the Director of the Kroller Muller Museum in the Netherlands which gave support to Finlay (see separate listing in this section of the collection). Finlay points out that if an "poet has a Sacred Grove in Holland, the Region can 'take at face value his assertion that his garden temple is a spiritual building.'"
Finlay also quotes Priscus of Panium's History of His Own Times on the moral legitimacy of constitutions.

...

03 Nov

Posted at 11:07h in Letters + Documents

Little Sparta: Finlay, franked: November 1982)
Standard hand addressed DL manilla postal envelope to Harry Warschauer. Notable for the black rubber stamp impression added by Finlay to the front: "STRATHCLYDE REGION FOR NACHT UND NEBEL" and cinderella stamp showing Joseph Stalin and the words "Strathclyde Region". The mailing process has franked the cinderella stamp! . Return address stamping on back. Slightly roughly opened.

...

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