Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
16.2 x 6cm, 4pp outer folder in red with inserted 4pp artist's card with a reproduced linocut by Gary Hincks on the front of a raging bonfire and internally a poem by Finlay:
IDYLLE.
Brilliante
blazing
bonfire
Idylle
de la
cerise
The colour of a blazing fire is compared with the colour of cherries (which is matched with the outer paper colour). VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
19.2 x 8.4cm, 2pp. A linocut by Gary Hincks. A work that is based on Ben Nicholson's Letters and Numbers - here displaying the sides of fish boxes with the various sizes and numbers and port letterings that identify the catches. Added however are IHF (for Finlay), GH (for Gary Hincks) and WHP (for Wild Hawthorn Press).
There were two variations of this card - one green and the other, like here, brown. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
60 x 27cm linocut in black/brown on white paper. Drawing after Ben Nicholson by Gary Hincks.
The images are a repeating reproduction of a fishing boat box end although the letting at the bottom consists of the initials of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gary Hincks and the Wild Hawthorn Press. Sadly we do not know and cannot find the origin Nicholson print this is based on - many of Finlay's later prints reproduced works inspired by Nicholson. We also believe there was a green print variant of this work. VG.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
6 x 2cm, 4pp. One of three cards issued by the press that displays the effects of the "clinker" method of boat building where the edges of hull planks overlap each other. The boat number (which for Finlay is often a poetic construct anyway) is broken up by the irregular sides of the hull. The drawing is by Gary Hincks. VG+.
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Glasgow: WAX366 for Morning Star Publications. 1997
14.5 x 20.5cm, 28pp plus brown boards with attached title label. Reproductions of 13 rubber stamp impressions from stamps that Finlay produced during the Little Sparta War. This was one of 100 numbered copies. Very scarce. In fine condition.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
11 x 16cm, 1pp. A quote from Virgil is repeated twice:
-- THEY lightly skim,
And gently sip the dimply river's brim.
One quotation is allocated by Finlay as being about bees, the other boats. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1997)
7.4 x 6.5cm, 4pp. Artist's postcard a drawing by Gary Hincks of a row of growing beans above which a model airplane has been placed on a string and thin stake presumably to keep birds off the planting.
A text internally reads:
Row of beans
And one old bomber
To scare the birds.
It appears this drawing was from an actual such installation in the garden of Andrew Whittle's Rose Cottage. Whittle was a stone carver and a collaborator with Finlay. VG+.
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Glasgow: Wax366, 1997
18 x 21cm, 2pp artist postcard with a black and white word FINISH but printed backwards - issued as an end of year gift by the artist. This example is signed on the back in black ink. Very slightly stained on the front else VG. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, Christmas 1996
14 x 15.2cm, 4pp card. A drawing by Gary Hincks of a cross section of the midship area of a boat. The parts of the structure are all printed in black except one "carling" which is in red. In shipbuilding, carlings are two pieces of timber laid fore and aft under the deck of a ship, from one beam to another, directly over the keel. Carlings hold the ship together. Other meanings of carlings are less known - an old woman (perhaps a witch) and a type of pea. More than this we do not know - any information about this card would be greatfully received.
This card has a hand-written greeting from Finlay in black ink "love from Dad". VG+
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14 x 15.2cm, 2pp. A balsa woodcut by Gary Hincks of a "bread-and-butter hull". Such hulls are used for models and they are hulls which are carved with an open top and the deck constructed using conjoined (by glue in a model) lengths of wood such as might be found on a real ship. Finlay's love of boat models has lasted most of his adult life and one can imagine he sees the very name of such constructions to be a wonderful poetic metaphor. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
14.8 x 10.5cm, 1pp. A symbolic image which represents a plate to be "worn on Andreas Muller's car" to suggest that he is a "Learner Editor". Finlay was upset by an article in Between Landscape Architecture and Land art by Udo Weilacher which Muller was the Architectual Editor for.
VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
15 x 24cm, 18pp plus printed green boards. Artist's book with nine b/w photographs by Robin Gillanders of the path to Little Sparta which in turn shows the ground, the gate from a little distance and then the sign on the gate. The first sign informs the public that "Following the authority's action against the Garden Temple Little Sparta is closed to the public". The second announces that "Strathclyde Region made war on little Sparta/Strathclyde Region is no more." - an adaption of a Committee of Public Safety announcement about Lyons and the final biting sign "Closed with the support of the Scottish Arts Council" which is a parody of the usual acknowledgement statement the SAC required to gain funding.
This was Finlay's retort at the end of the "Little Sparta Wars" where Strathclyde Regional Council fought with the artist over a ratings issue of a building they claimed to be an art gallery while Finlay believed to be a Garden Temple. By closing Little Sparta and claiming the Garden Temple was reclassified as a "store" then Finlay found a way of ending the dispute allied to the fact that Strathclyde Region was abolished due to the UK Government's reorganisation. His dislike to the Scottish Arts Council remained however as he felt they had not given him any support at all in his fight and the book quotes Andrew Nairne, Visual Arts Director of the SAC as saying "Little Sparta should be sacrifices to the greater good of the arts in Scotland" which is astonishing now that Little Sparta is regarded by many as the major artistic venture in Soctland of the 2oth centrury.
Very good + condition and an interesting documentation of the end of the dispute as much as an artist's book.
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