Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991
10.6 x 16cm, 48pp plus card covers with printed dust jacket. Artist's book with four folded over pages that have one text on the outside that reveals the second text when opened.
Neoclassical Thaumaturgy
opens to
The gods fly faster than sound.
A monostich is a one line poem. VG+.
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Edinburgh, Scotland: Morning Star Publications, n.d. ( 1991)
21 x 15cm 4pp (folding sheet printed one side only) with various epigrams by Finlay denoted as "More Detached Sentences on Gardening". VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1991)
9.2 x 7.6cm, 8pp plus card covers. Artist's book which has two definitions inside of the word Scud:
firstly, to sweep along easily and swiftly,: to drive before the wind: to traverse swiftly
and
to spank.
Finlay seems to have the idea of a boat moving quickly but also being forced along by its crew. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991 10.0 x 6.8cm, 14pp plus wrappers and printed dust jacket. Artist's book with seven illustrations by Kathleen Lindsley and short proverb-like texts by Finlay, for example, "The wind roaring in the night is both stranger and friend." VG+ - although staples are a bit rusty. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991
8.2 x 10cm, 8pp with printed blue card covers. Picturesque was a style of painting which stressed the pretty and the kitsch and here Finlay cites in sarcastic terms the view that:
"It is hardly necessary to remark how the view from the house would be enlivened by the smoke of a cottage - " which is a direct quote from Humphry Repton the 18th century gardener and proponent of the style.
Finlay conjoins on the page opposite "- or a Picasso portrait by the inclusion of a recognisable pipe." which forces a modernity onto Repton's rather passe vision. VG+
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991
30.8 x 12cm, 200 plus card covers and green printed dustjacket. Artist's book based on various Greek myths. Finlay supplies six small one line poems each with a single repeated illustration by Solveig Hill - such as:
APHRODITE
Oil, in the air's cool jar.
and
CHLORIS
The birds awake the dawn.
VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
7.5 x 7.5cm, 32pp and card covers and printed dust jacket. Artist's book with 9 illustrations by Gary Hincks and three line poems by Finlay.
The texts all relate to winter in the countryside and could be read as a single work but really each stands alone.
foot
following
foot
is shown next to a painting of footprints in the snow.
the staples are rusty but this is a scarce item - only 250 copies were printed as Christmas gifts, else VG+. This example is signed by Finlay on the first blank paper in ink.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
9.8 x 9.3cm, 16pp and card wrappers and printed light green dust jacket. Drawings by Kathleen Lindsley of various baskets containing bread, wheat leaves and finally, heads are denoted as DOMESTIC, PASTORAL, PARNASSIAN and SUBLIME. Again Finlay sees the extremes of the Terror as somehow pure and homely even if evil.
Staples are a bit rusted else VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
21.2 x 3.6cm, 4pp and blue card wrappers. Internally there is a text by Finlay merging Saint-Just and Rimbaud.
"Whoever desecrates sepulchres is banished."
A poem about respecting tradition and by extension classicism. VG+
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1990)
13 x 8.8cm, 8pp plus card covers. Artist's book with two poems based on originals by Symons and Goethe:
Murmur
of many
waters
Rustle
of redbrown
reeds
(After Symons)
and
The trees
are all
so still
A little
breeze
springs up
(After Goethe).
Finlay often alters short works or selections by other poets or authors. The changes brings a new meaning to the translations - often modernising. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
14 x 12.4cm, 4pp and printed card wrappers. Internally are two poems by Finlay.
TOMBSTONE
Sundial
without
a gnomon
opposite to
MARBLE
Parachute
of
the gods.
Both images are of stones. The tombstone is a reminder of the passing of time even without the gnomon. The beauty of marble has landed from the heavens above.
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Nevers: Centre d'art contemporain, 1990
15 x 10.5cm, Two bound in printed 6pp single sheets in outer 8pp wrappers. Ostensibly an exhibition catalogue but in fact a joint artist's book with Cutts. The two sections of the inner fold outs have on the left a text "a line of thin pale blue" and the sheet is bound in by a blue thread. This is claimed to be a "translation of a line by Mallame (a poet who can lay claim to have published the first ever concrete poem). On the right section there is a text: "a line of thin pale red" and the sheet is bound in by a blue thread. This is a "translation of a line by Chenier." André Marie Chénier was a poet who lost his life on the guillotine only three days before the overthrown of Robespierre.
The first is a line referring to the horizon, the second to the line of blood from the throats of the murdered - opponents of the Terror sometime wore thin red threads around their body to indicate their mourning for the dead.
A lovely artist's book - the theme (red thread) of which Finlay used in sculptures such as Aphrodite of the Terror from 1987.
Explanatory texts in English and French. . VG+.
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