Glasgow: Wax366, 1998
10 x 17.2cm, 16pp (self cover). Stapled bound. Artist's book listing the methods by which the book was made one item at a time eg Sugar Paper, Toner, Folded, Stapled, and Trimmed, Very small limitation. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
11.8 x 15.6cm, 2pp printed with a b/w photograph by Robin Gillanders of three stylised boat models - the abstracted forms are similar is style to the way Supremacist painters used geometric shapes and minimalist lines. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
15.4 x 10.4cm, 10pp, leporello printed one side only with grey boards and tipped on title label. The book reproduces four b/w simplistic but dramatic drawings by Gary Hinks of the prow of a boat - BCK35, a modern fishing boat from Buckie in the Moray Firth named CALEDONIA III.
The title is a neologism made up of two words - Prow and Poem - and the drawings show various abstracted views of the boat's prow. The beauty of that curve appears to have attracted Finlay's attention as well as the coincidence of Poem/Prow.
Finlay also published prints and cards using Hincks' drawings. This is a VG example of a rather lovely book.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
14 x 10.4cm, 1pp printed with an appropriated image of a Dunkirk Little Ship "Shepherd Lad" which is for sale. The bopat's image and profile are reproduced. Finlay had previously used this boat name in a tile and other works - and here he denotes the advert as a "eclogue" which is a short poem usually with a countryside theme. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
9 x 15.2cm, 4pp (assymetric fold) artist's card printed orange black on white with a drawing of a "rusty corvettes at sea by Gary Hincks. This was one of the flower class battleships that were deployed in the second world war and hence Finlay notes it as a "rusted flower" - a mignonette which are often red in wet October. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10 x 12.5cm, 4pp artist's card printed black on white with a list of the "Flower-class" corvettes that were loaned to the USA after 1942 the ship names (all named after flowers) were changed to be more in keeping with US naming conventions. These ships were therefore changed into different things much as all of the heroes and things in Ovid's Metamophoses were. Hence the title of the card. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
8 x 10cm, 4pp artist's card printed black on grey with a drawing of a battleship by Gary Hincks
Inside the card Finlay notes the participants of the "Battle of the Flowers" in 1941/1942 - Loosestrife, Larkspur, Balm.
There were 294 "Flower-class" corvettes engaged in the second world war all of which had names of flowers, the first two here both were involved in the Battle of the Atlantic and the third boar was never actually commissioned - Finlay has this name noted as "(cancelled)". Finlay returned time and time again to this naming convention for the battleships in cards and prints because of its use of the names of a wide number of blooms. VG+.
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25 x 19.8cm, original vintage silver gelatine photograph of a sculpture (wheel barrow) in Little Sparta taken by Finlay's collaborator Robin Gillanders in 1998. In original glass and wood frame. Purchased at a charity auction in the same year.
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Nailsworth: Cairn Gallery, 1998
38 x 29cm, 1pp black on gloss paper. Large b/w inkjet (as issued) exhibition poster for a show of images from Little Sparta taken by Janet Boulton and David Paterson. One image of a broken column in situ in Finlay's garden reproduced on the front. Slightly ripped along edges. Not many produced.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.2 x 15.2cm, 1pp artist's card printed brown and green on white with a text in French:
LE SOCIALISME DEVRAIT FAIRE POUR LE PEUPLE CE QUE LE CUBISME
A FAIT POUR LE COUTEAU, LA FOUCHETTE ET LEA CUILLERE.
In translation that reads that "socialism should do for the people what cubism has done for the knife, the fork and the spoon".
Cubist still-life paintings often showed common implements such as knives and forks as significant elements in their composition, and Finlay here is suggesting that socialism should raise the lot of working people and give them significance in a similar manner. This was the second of two cards with the same text but with different designs - here the look of the card is much more like a wall poster and demanding. VG+.
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30 x 24cm, b/w original photograph taken by Robin Gillanders of Little Sparta for his book "‘Little Sparta, Portrait of a Garden". This shows one of Finlay's garden sculptures of a submarine. Gillanders took the images between 1994 and 2004. Originally a gift from the photographer to Janet Boulton, one of Finlay's later collaborators and a friend to both Gillanders and the poet. VG+.
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Seven colour photographs (each 10 x 15cm) of untitled watercolours by Janet Boulton nased on views of Little Sparta. All VG.
JOINT WITH:
30 x 21cm, 1pp gallery handout for the exhibition of the watercolours listing the works G
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