07 Mar

Posted at 20:18h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1971
12.7 x 10.3cm, 16pp plus wrappers and pictorial dj - artist's book which purports to be a test for the ability to master a Weed Boat. The questions are all jokey and poetic at the same time. For example: "Q. What are the "petals" of the Port of Honfleur?" No answers are given. there are small vignettes on most pages by Ian Gardner.
Part One of the "test" was published in the series "Private Tutor" as issue no. 11 - see the listing elsewhere in these pages.VG+ although staples are minorly rusty

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24 Jan

Posted at 12:08h in Artist's Books

Nottinghams: Tarasque Press, 1971
7.5 x 22cm, 76pp with one fold out page. Original card wrappers with pictorial dust jacket designed by Margot Sandeman. This artist's book consists of appropriated fisherman's slips (the paper slips put on boxes of fish to identify the seller) which are one and two word poems in this form. One of 300 signed and numbered copies. VG+. Murray 3.38.

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08 Dec

Posted at 10:35h in Artist's Books

Nottingham: Tarasque Press, 1970 10 x 15cm, 24pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket. An artists' book with three Ian Hamilton Finlay concrete poems, three by SImon Cutts and two by Stuart Mills - all illustrated by Ian Gardner. Finlay's contributions are DAISY chain (sic), Carousel and Windmills Winding Waters. The book is very hard to find and often missed in catalogue raisonnes of Finlay's work. The illustrations by Gardner are charming and somewhat minimal - Daisy chain is illustrated as an iron chain for an anchor as Finlay's poem uses the name of a boat - DAISY - to create the visual poem. This is one of 100 numbered and signed copies. Slightly rusted staples else VG+. Very scarce.

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19 Jul

Posted at 00:03h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1970
7.2 x 10.2cm, 14pp. Concertina folded single sheet printed on both sides. Each image is an appropriated headline from the trade journal Fishing News - the headlines are more poetic when isolated from their origins. For example "Fishermen turn to mackerel" alters the story from a decision to change fishing strategy to that of a sea myth. Some of the works show here were published as individual artist's postcards also by the Wild Hawthorn Press. VG. There is a line drawing by Margot Sandeman at the second page of the publication.
One could make the case that this is a folded card rather than an artist's book but traditionally Murray has it in the artist's books section of his catalogue raisonee and we have decided to accept that catagorising with some reservations.

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18 Feb

Posted at 22:51h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1970
11.6 x 21cm, 30pp. Card covers with printed dust wrapper. Artist's book - with 16pp (recto only, leporello). A series of drawings by Sandeman of boats along with their names (thirteen in all). This is one of only 300 copies - of which each is numbered and signed by Finlay. Finlay often uses the image of a lemon in water as a metaphor for a boat. Slight browning on on edge else VG.

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18 Oct

Posted at 22:41h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969
5.5 x 9cm, 30pp. Card covers with printed dust wrapper. Artist's book that takes the typesetter's symbol for "transpose" as a wave that moves through the various letters A, E, V and W - to eventually create the word for wave - and after all the symbol's typographic form is very similar to a wave shape. This work was the basis for larger three dimensional works on glass and also in stone and for public works. A small delight.

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18 Oct

Posted at 22:34h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969
21.1 x 9cm, 30pp. Card covers with printed dust wrapper. Artist's book with two small drawings by Margot Sandeman. Each page has a two word poem printed in red and green based on combinations of the words Red, Roof, Wild, Rose, Blown, Tile until the last two words when the word White is added. There is a tale of sorts - the building has a red roof and it is blown away, a red rose is also replaced by a white rose. In some manner the petals of a rose are compared with a roof of a house.

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19 Sep

Posted at 10:10h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969
12.5 x 10.2cm, single sheet of dark blue card accordion folded six times to make 14 panels. Each panel has a line drawing which is unusually not credited so perhaps appropriated from another publication. Each boat is dedicated to a friend or enemy such that one can discern Finlay's opinion of them or a wry comment on their character.

A Boat, for Bob Cobbing*
Barking Fish-Carrier

Cobbing as Finlay notes here with the * was a sound poet in the London poetry scene. Of course the entire literary scene might well be a "boatyard" of ever moving figures b(c)obbing here and there.
Murray has placed this item as an artist's book but it could easily be re-catagorised as a folding card but for ease of reference we have decided to keep in as an "artist's book" in our listings.

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18 Jun

Posted at 22:24h in Artist's Books

Woodchester: Openings Press, 1969
21.5 x 15.2cm, 4pp. A small broadside published by John Furnival's press. The poem by Finlay is illustrated by Furnvial. The poem is made up of eleven groups of three words telling a story: the quay is silent and only covered in snow - then a Russian ship arrives, there are hats, footsteps and songs from the sailors and then the ship leaves port. The final words are Silence. Silence. Snow.
It is after the Russian.
The work was previously published in London Magazine January 1969.

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18 Apr

Posted at 13:39h in Artist's Books

n.p. (London): Fulcrum Press, 1969
21.5 x 14.5cm, 48pp. Boards with printed dust-jacket. The third edition of this Finlay's second book of poems - traditional in format mostly and usually in Scots/Doric. However this was published by Fulcrum who claimed it as the "first edition" on the colophon much to Finlay's annoyance. The original linocuts in the earlier publications have gone and the design is typographic only. Some marks and evidence of past adhesive labels on the front of the dustjacket (which has an image of a Giacometti maquette as its illustration) else VG. Scarce.

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18 Mar

Posted at 22:15h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969
21 x 17.8cm, 12pp. Original card covers with pictorial dust wrapper. An artist's book with three b/w photographs of boats on the large pond (Later to be called Loch Ech after Ian's son) on Finlay's recently purchased farm alongside three concrete poems - the words placed in a constellation or grid under the photographs. This example is signed and dedicated by Finlay in blue felt tipped ink on the inside front cover to Maxwell Allan a friend and collaborator. VG.

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18 Jun

Posted at 22:12h in Artist's Books

Nottingham: Tarasque Press, 1968
25.6 x 10.4cm, 20pp plus tissue end papers and original card covers. Printed typographic dustjacket. An artist's book published by Stuart Mill's press - seven couplet poems (poems that have two lines, one above the other separated by a thick line) by Finlay are illustrated below by Robert Frame. Each first line has a subject and ends with the word poem - indicating the word or letters below ARE the poem.
One such poem is

The Windmill's Poem
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X

The X of course being a letter that looks like the sails of a windmill.

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