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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03 Dec

Posted at 08:38h in Artist's Books

N.p. (Ceres?): s.p. (FInlay? or Tarasque Press?), 1966
23.2 x 11cm, 2pp plus blue printed wrappers. An unusual artist's book which appears to be hand made and has on the front a concrete poem by Finlay:

Arcady ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

then stapled inside is a much smaller sheet of orange paper (Finlay likes the combination of blue and orange - a colour scheme he uses often in prints and books) on which is a handwritten note in blue ink from Finlay: "Happy Christmas and love to Martin from Ian - Christmas '66"
This small book is in VG condition but two stains (brown marks) to the front of the wrappers and some creasing to the top of the sheet
JOINT TO THE BOOK:
20 x 12.5cm, 1pp hand-typed insert on pink typing paper: "Some questions on the poem, for Christmas Day." listing questions that may be asked of the poem and the writer's intent. VG+.t
JOINT TO THE BOOK:
20 x 12.5cm, 1pp hand-typed insert on green typing paper: "A question on the questions, for Boxing Day." Some browning to the centre of the page near the fold else VG.

This is an early and somewhat limited run artist's book, one of the inner typed sheets are mentioned in the Murray catalogue raisonne as the second "miscellaneous" item (7.2) but clearly Murray did not know of the rest of the publication.
Issued at Xmas, the poem by listing all of the letters of the alphabet and comparing them to Arcady (the mythical utopian country - a place to strive to live) Finlay is suggesting the world of letters, words and symbols is an utopian land for poets.
The additional typed letters may just be fun things to do on Christmas Day and Boxing Day but are really clues to how to 'read' the poem. And in the second letter how to 'read' the questions.
The hand typed and hand-written aspects of this publication may indicate that very few were produced - it is not unique given that Murray had an example of one of the letters but we have never seen another copy. Murray has this as being published by the Tarasque Press and that is possible but the hand- made aspects would suggest it was Finlay himself. Reading the published letters between Bann and Finlay for the months around Xmas 1966 does not find any reference to the book at all so we are for now flummoxed.

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18 Nov

Posted at 21:05h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1966
9.7 x 138cm, 16pp (recto only). Original wrappers with printed mustard dust jacket. Small artist's book with childlike drawings Emil Antonucci, which are mostly visual puns by Finlay but also all are patches of some kind. Finlay has used the metaphor of a patch in many different works and formats - often as a symbol of the poverty or resourcefulness of rural communities. The print here is light blue and black on white. Murray has this as 3.20.
Another in the series of books which Finlay has entitled with the word Stripe in the title.

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18 Sep

Posted at 20:55h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1966
10 x 25.5cm, 28pp (recto only) printed on different coloured papers (of different thicknesses) with card covers. Metal slide binding. Twenty eight concrete poems by Finlay. A rather attractive early book. Quite scarce. Murray has this as 3.19.

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19 Aug

Posted at 09:55h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1966
21 x 9.5cm, 24 pp plus card wrappers and illustrated dustjacket. A series of "constellation" works (as per Gomringer's vanguard poems) where trios of words are placed in a grid and combined to give different word pictures. Each is illustrated by a linocuts by Zeljko Kujundzic. .
This example is signed "love from Ian, 1966" in thick green felt tipped pen on the first blank end page. VG+.

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18 Jul

Posted at 20:47h in Artist's Books

N.p.: (Edinburgh): Wild Hawthorne Press, 1966
16.5 x 17cm, 20pp (recto only) plus bound in transparent papers. Original card wrappers with printed dust jacket. A series of photographs of ploughed earth by Audrey Walker, printed black and white, overlaid with translucent pages printed with Finlay's minimal concrete poetry. The text uses the metaphor of "turning over the earth" to illustrate the images of digging but the circular photographs represent the planet and Earth is indeed turning. This example is signed and dedicated on the inside front cover by Finlay in black ink to Maxwell Allan the sculptor. VG+ condition. Murray 3.16. Scarce.

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22 Mar

Posted at 21:42h in Artist's Books

Wein: Universal-Edition , 1966
14.5 x 20cm, 118pp. Original card covers. First edition of this German translation of a number of short plays by Finlay originally written in the 50s and translated by Estella Schmid. The Estate Hunters and Walking Through Seaweed are two of the works which were later published in a Penguin Anthology "New English Dramatists" in 1970 (see separate listing in this site).
Pages somewhat browned as the paper employed in the printing was cheap. This copy has an inscription in black ink by Finlay to "To Eduard/ with love from Ian/ 15 March 1966."

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