Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
11.3 x 9cm, 20pp with card covers and printed dust jacket. Five drawings of warboats by Gary Hincks show the battleships with their varying camouflage paints. Below each is an anagram of each ship's name (all named after flowers) which by the jumble has "camouflaged" the names. Finlay kindly gives the answers to the anagrams at the back of the book.
One of 250 copies. VG+.
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n.p. : Aggie Weston's, 1997
14.6 x 9cm, 4pp with card covers. There are two texts:
Fun and Colourful
this solid little sailing barge is designed to sail on bath and pond alike
a blurb from a toy company, and then,
Fun and Colourful
this solid little sailing barge is designed to sail on bath and pond and sink". The joke is a visual one, a photograph taken by Rodger Brown shows a small toy boat which has turned over in a sink (sunk).
A joint work with Stuart Mills, this example is signed by Mills on the last page. VG+.
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Bruxelles/Hannover/Paris: Editions Lebeer Hossmann/Christian Boltanski, 1998
21.7 x 15.6cm, 34pp plus wrappers. First edition of this artist's book with 32 b/w images of the artist again reproducing scenes from his childhood - mostly of his memories of playing games. The photographs were all taken by Annette Messager in 1972 but the legends below each image (In French, English and German) clearly states they are contemporary to the artist's childhood. One of 1.500 copies of a second edition printing of the book tweinty-six years after the original. This second edition is printed in a larger paper size than the first edition. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.2 x 15.2cm, 1pp artist's card printed brown on brown 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. Finlay's politics are often assumed to be right-wing because of his interest in virtue, piety and classicism but that is not necessarily the case. This is the first of two cards with the same content but the design is different here with much more formal typography. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
18.5 x 9.2cm, 2pp artist's card printed brown and black on white with a linocut by Gary Hincks after Ben Nicholson's Brown with Little Squares. The linocut is similar to the original abstract work with its rectangular shapes but here the squares are fishboxes complete with the occasional boat reference number. This is the third of three cards published by the Press which takes the original work by the St Ives artist as a jumping off point. . VG+.
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Helsinki: Helsinki Festival / Kunsthalle Helsinki, 1998
33 x 25cm, 86pp including 40pp of b/w images of the installation. Gray cloth-covered boards with title stamped in gray and red on cover. Exhibition catalogue for "Christian Boltanski: Night in August," which was part of the Helsinki Festival. Boltanski's installation was "Dernières Années" which consisted of several sections - a clothing collection (folded and placed on shelves), objects and images covered in black cloth (as if shrouded) to hide their content and a major archive of tin boxes with faces of unidentified people. There is an essay (in Finnish, Swedish and English) by Michael Glasmeier and an interview with Boltanski (in Finnish, Swedish and English) by Jan Kaila. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998 14 x 21.5cm, black on cream offset backing sheet with a 7.2 x 15.2cm, tipped on full colour reproduction of a cheque from Graham Rich but with the latter's signature replaced with one of his small stylised ship drawings. This was a gift from Finlay to his friend Rich which followed a conversation about :"signatures" between the two artists. Limitation not known - probably 350. VG+. JOINT: 30 x 21cm, 1pp colour inkjet reproducing Finlay's letter to Rich in which he included the print. Folded for mailing. ...
Nailsworth: Cairn Gallery, n.d. (1998)
12.2 x 10cm, 4pp typographic announcement card for a small show of photographs by Janet Boulton and David Paterson of Little Sparta. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
17 x 12cm, 2pp artist's card printed black on blue with a linocut by Gary Hincks after Ben Nicholson's Three Goblets. The linocut is similar to the original abstract work in that three rudders are shown overlapping in the design. A Coble is a North East English fishing boat with a long thin rudder which is reproduced here. This is the second of two cards with a very similar drawing was published at the same time in black on white. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
17 x 12cm, 2pp artist's card printed black on white with a linocut by Gary Hincks after Ben Nicholson's Three Goblets. The linocut is similar to the original abstract work in that three rudders are shown overlapping in the design. A Coble is a North East English fishing boat with a long thin rudder which is reproduced here. A second card with a very similar drawing was published at the same time in black on blue. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10 x 13.5cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on dark blue (perhaps reflecting the low light of the film room). Finlay tells the tale of how he would watch Captains Courageous (in the East Neuk of Fife) as a young boy and the cinema projector was powered by an old fishing engine which meant the children could hear the put-put throughout the film which was about Massachusetts fishing industry looking for cod. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998 6.3 x 9.3cm, 4pp artist's postcard with an image of a cruiser from the "Flower" series. The card might be seen as a valentine card and gift (a flower) but the name of the flower is also similar to Hearts' ease. VG+. ...