20 Feb

Posted at 15:13h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre/Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1983)
7.8 x 8.2cm outer folder content of eight 7.8 x 8.2cmm 1pp cards. Each of seven cards (the eighth is a colophon) suggests single word changes to lines from Ovid's Metamorphoses to alter the meaning of the line and a drawing by Gary Hincks. As often Finlay enjoys the effects of minimal changes to cause maximum effect. Arguably a colleciton of artist's postcards but the cards could not stand alone so we agree this is categorised as an artist's book. VG+

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20 May

Posted at 16:32h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
11.4 x 10.4cm,12pp and printed wrappers.
Artist's book with two quotations from Cholmeley and Burnet from Greek texts - the first is "a line of green among the trees" from Theocritis which Finlay claims is "Land Art in Theocritis" and the second from Empedokles referencing the idylls of Aphrodite as "A Fete Galante in Empedokles". The cover of the book is a b/w reproduction of an unidentified Watteau painting (who painted The Departure to Cytheria). The book ends with a quotation from Sol Lewitt: "One usually understands the art of the past by applying the conventions of the present - this mis-understanding the art of the past." Finlay had created many "homage" works where he celebrated the essence of many artists - this is the reverse, the modern celebrating the past but by deliberate misunderstanding. VG+>

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06 Apr

Posted at 10:29h in Artist's Books

Alsbach: Verlaggalerie Leaman, 1982
11.5 x 11.2cm, 20pp plus oversize wrappers. Artist's book containing five drawings by Gary Hincks and poems by Finlay.

IMPROVISATIONS

leaf-boat
cottonreel-tank

cottonreel-boat
leaf-tank

which is illustrated with drawings of bobbins used in toy model making.
One of 500 copies. VG+.

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20 Mar

Posted at 16:15h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
13 x 25.2cm, 8pp plus card wrappers and printed white dust jacket.
Artist's book with two drawings of the Japanese planes trying to return to their aircraft carrier which is on fire as a result most had to crash into the seas and the pilots drown. The quotation is "The last honey by the water that no hive can find." from Austin Clarke's The Cattledrive in Connaught" 1925. The Clarke quotation has its flaws - it is the bee that seeks the pollen not the hive so the line is rather reversed but Finlay ignores that (as he does in other publications such as the Black Sparrow Press, publication also of 1982 called "Honey by the water." VG+.

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06 Mar

Posted at 16:07h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
9.9 x 11.1cm, 28pp plus card wrappers and printed white dust jacket.
Artist's book with three sections - the first shows a unit (a dot), a line (two dots) and a plane (three dots). The second is Unit, line panzer (altering the dots into representing military units) and then, finally, unit, line, plane (the last page has two crosses and a dot instead of three dots. The simplest of changes creates significant differences in meaning. VG+

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27 Feb

Posted at 15:58h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
7.5 x 9.5cm, 12pp plus card wrappers and printed white dust jacket.
Artist's book with a drawing of a circle, a classical column and a cube by Ian Gardner. The text is "Volume makes beauty/ and the most beautiful forms" with the latter on the page with the drawings "are the sphere, the cylinder, the cube." a quote from Vitulio from the 12th century. (One is reminded of Paul Cezanne's similar statement).
Finlay has replaced the cylinder with a classical column - changing Vitulio's statement into a promotion of neo-classicism. VG+

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15 Feb

Posted at 15:44h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
7.5 x 9.5cm, 12pp plus card wrappers and printed pink dust jacket.
Artist's book with two drawings by Ian Gardner - one entitled The Orgy of The Cherries - where the stalks and stones are scattered and L'Idylle de Cerises where the cherries are uneaten and the stalks still attached. The L'Idylle de Cerises is a reference from a chapter heading from Rousseau's Les Confessions. Cherries are associated with sexual pleasure and Rousseau mentions them in a context of mild desire. The book (printed on pink to reflect the colour of the fruit) shows the detritus of cherry eating - with all the stones scattered - as a metaphor for an orgy when all the participants are exhausted and strewn across the bed. VG+.

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26 Dec

Posted at 15:31h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1981)
12 x 12cm, 40pp plus card wrappers and printed photo-pictorial dust jacket.
Artist's book where Finlay has placed translations of the Anaximander Fragment (the earliest known extant philosophical thesis) opposite images of a broken classical column and its base found in the extended grounds of Little Sparta (then Stoneypath). The column was of course deliberately partly destroyed as the original artwork. The images, in b/w , were by Harvey Dwight.
The philosophers cited here are Diels, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jaeger, Weil, Kahn, Kirk, Hussey, Burnet, Lloyd-Jones and Jaspers.
The fragment from Anaximander (600 BC) is a statement about how life has to make way for death out of necessity and each translation has subtle different meanings. Of course, the fact that only a tiny amount of the thoughts of Anaximander has survived into the present day is a mirror of the ruined (by intent) column.
The consideration of man's death is a major theme running through much of Finlay's output - and this falls heavily in the middle of his fascination of momento mori and similar works. VG+ example of a very scarce book.

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23 Dec

Posted at 12:07h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1981)
17.8 x 13.9cm, light brown outer folder content of three 1pp sheets each with a concrete poem on them. The first two are on blue card and are presumably the two epicurian poems - the first has lines which represents a wafer surrounded by water (a wafer being a dry slice of something may be seen as land and the water as sea hence the whole an island), the second shows descending lines of water and one representing a bird swooping vertically down. These works remind one of a modern typographic equivalent of Apollinaire's calligrammes.
The final work is on orange paper (Finlay often used these colour combinations)and shows a triangle and a circle - the first is meant to be the scent of oranges, the second the scent of pears. The citrus of oranges is sharp like the corners of the triangle. This latter poem is meant to be a paradox and that is because of the shapes - the "Sharp" orange is not round while the pair is not a triangle which broadly is the shape of a pair..
Epicurean philosophy promoted simplicity, enjoyment and calmness as the way to a better life. In modern times the word is more associated with someone who enjoys food. Finlay seems to be happy with the simple life.
These works are usually placed in the artist's book section of Finlay's raisonne but there is a strong case for them to be small prints. But for now we have retained them in the former category. VG+ in like folder.

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01 Dec

Posted at 11:27h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
9.7 x 5.7cm, 8pp plus printed red wrappers. Artist's book which lists two groups of names - the first Angelique, Tilleul, Pavot, Serpolet, Cheverefgeuille and Thym are listed as "a litany for Prairial". These are French names for herbs and Prairial is not only the Ninth revolutionary month (beginning in May) but also the time when the Law of 22 Prairial, also known as the loi de la Grande Terreur, was passed that gave power to the Committee of Public Safety that Robespierre turned into the dictatorship of the Terror. Herbs, of course, are picked and chopped up and consumed.
The second list "A requiem for Thermidor" has the names of the members of the Committee of Public Safety - Fleuriot, Hanriot, Couthon, Payan, Robespierre and Saint-Just. These were the victims of their own Terror when they were guillotined during the Thermidorian reaction (Robespierre went to his death in severe pain as he had tried to commit suicide only to partially blow off his own jaw in the attempt, Saint-Just was dignified and stoic).
The colours of the book papers are red, white and blue - the colours of the republic's tricolour.
The Litany is one of religious praise - here for the spring but with foreboding and foreshadowing of the destruction of the Terrorists. The requiem a cry of pain for the deposed leaders who killed so many by dictat.

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18 Aug

Posted at 10:53h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1981 16 x 16cm, 60pp plus card covers and printed dustjacket. Three fold outs and one work reproduced in colour as frontispiece. Artist's book (one suspects it was also an exhibition catalogue given Murray was the dealer for the works included but this is not mentioned and Finlay is noted as having designed the book) which shows duotone images (by Hani Latif) of 17 inscribed large pebbles (or rocks really) with found texts from philosophers, poets and others. The texts on the stones reflect the quotations. The sculptures were made under Finlay's instruction by Richard Grasby. One thousand copies were printed. VG although slight rippling to the dustjacket.
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21 May

Posted at 13:49h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981.
24.8 × 30.5cm, 32pp plus pictorial card covers. A somewhat rare artist's book which has eight full colour lithographs of water colour paintings of poppies by Ian Gardner on thick paper bound in with titles by Finlay. A rather lovely book the theme is similar to other books where German Panzer tanks are well camouflaged in nature. Here the camouflage is perfect - one cannot see the tanks at all. In a suppliment bound in at the back - Finlay has added numberous epigrams relating to tanks and camouflage.

"Total War prompts a Total War Art."

This is one of only 200 copies signed by both Finlay and Gardner on the last page.VG+.

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