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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20 May

Posted at 20:41h in Artist's Books

Nottingham: Jargon Press, 1968
50.7 x 38.4cm, calendar with twelve original silkscreens, one silkscreen portrait of the artist, a colophon sheet and front cover and backing board. Spiral bound along top. Introduction by Jonathan Williams and a foreword by Mike Weaver. Designed by Herbert M. Rosenthal.
Twelve colour prints issued as a large folio spiral-bound calendar, featuring short commentaries by Stephen Bann based on information provided to him by Finlay.
The title refers to Wittgenstein's 'Blue and Brown Books' (1958) in which he developed the concept that the meaning of a word is its actual use in language.
This is quite possibly possibly the most sought after publication by Finlay - the twelve serigraphs are each individual concrete poetry works and dealers usually split this publication up and frame the individual prints and sell them at high prices. This example is unusually complete and is housed in the original custom made cardboard shipping box address to the editor of the Black Sparrow Press Seamus Cooney. There is some browning to the front purple sheet but overall this is one of the best example of this rare publication you can find..
Murray has this as reference 3.28 and notes a complete set of the prints are for sale in 2006 for £2,000. The Prints Drukgrafik catalogue reference is 2.64.4 and the 12 images can be seen on pages 19 - 21.

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18 May

Posted at 21:50h in Artist's Books

N.p. (London) : Pluto Press, 1969
17.5 x 12.8cm, 12pp plus original thick card wrappers. Each page was silkscreened in green and blue. A series of visual poems with texts all based on the flora and fauna around forrest ponds. One is reminded of Basho's famous haiku. The texts are as if the book was for reading to a child. it not clear why Finlay rejected the book - it is perhaps because he did not like the illustrations but it is hard to see the objection as this is a pleasant, amusing book. Only 7 copies were made - all were numbered - and this one is nr 6/7 (in pencil on the half title). This is in pristine condition.
This is one of the absolutely rarest of FInlay's books.

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07 Jul

Posted at 19:57h in Artist's Books

Bath: Opening Press, 1967
47. 5 x 47.5 x 1.5cm, silkscreened portfolio case content of 13 individual silkscreens in various colours on thin card. The silkscreens are all concrete poems which were based on correspondence between Ian Hamilton Finlay and Eve Furnival - John Furnival's young daughter. Finlay had sent simple concrete poems to the young girl - and when he was invited to work with Furnival in the latter's class at Bath Academy these poems were created with the students (one student per print) and this portfolio produced.
There is great humour in this work - like elsewhere in Finlay's oeuvre - ambiguous headlines from real and made up newspapers give the basis for many of the works. Lobster boats here look nippy, Waterlilies lead double lives and are warned that they must reflect. hedgehogs announce annual turnovers as if they were banks or just rolled in defence.
This is one of the most rare Finlay publications. One 50 numbered copies were made. This example is internally in VG+ condition although the cover has a horrible paper scuff (although the cover is based on a childish drawing by Eve Furnival.

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18 Jun

Posted at 22:00h in Artist's Books

London: Fulcrum Press, 1967
23 x 10cm, internally there are 2 full sheets and three sets of 6pp cards all bound one set above the other in plastic spiral binding. This artist's book has taken its design from children's books where different combinations of the inner pages can be chosen. The words in combination display a scene from a boat on canal alongside landmarks - which is a clever recreation of earlier canal stripe books where the changes in scene are over pages rather than by the reader's actions. One of 1,000 copies although 50 copies were signed and numbered.
This example is in VG+ condition.

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18 May

Posted at 21:31h in Artist's Books

Nottingham: Tarasque Press, n.d. (1967)
20.2 x 16.6cm, 32pp. Original card wrappers and a pictorial dust jacket with an image of a seascape. This artist's book (one of the few by Finlay not published by the Wild Hawthorn Press) places quotations taken from essays on phonic poetry by Ernst Jandl, Paul de Vree, and Kurt Schwitters alongside photographic images of boats (taken from the trade publication Fishing News). Importantly each boat's registration letters can be seen. As a "postscript: there is a sound poem written by Schwitters which is made up of letters very similar in combination to those of the fishing boat registrations which is the point of Finlay's book.
"The basic material is not the word but the letter." is one of the quotes chosen by Finlay to reproduce,.

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18 Feb

Posted at 21:13h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1967
12.8 x 10.5cm, 32pp. Card covers with printed dust jacket. An artist's book the title of which refers to a wild bird - interestingly not found in Scotland - which had a loud piercing song which is often claimed to be like two stones being hit off each other. The concrete and experimental poems inside take different forms but one new format found here are two phrases one above the other which together give a poetic description.

THE BOAT'S BLUE PRINT
water

On consideration of the couplet one can see that the displacement of water by a boat might be seen in relativistic terms that the water is forming the shape of the boat above. Poetic if not good physics.

This copy has a handwritten dedication by Finlay in blue ink on the inside front cover (to an unnamed friend the sculptor Maxwell Allan from whom's archive this book was found) "Love from Ian, Easter '68." VG+.

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