Artist's Postcards - Unoriginal Sins

29 Oct JUG. 1995.

Posted at 20:38h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
5.5 x 10.9cm, 4pp, Artist's card with a definition work by Finlay printed on the inner card:
"Jug, n. if in a still-life by Juan Gris, the note of the nightingale."
Gris being one of the most important of Cubists who often painted still life works in which brown earthenware often featured. The jug of a nightingale being also the sound it makes. The colour of the card is also that of the crockery. Essentially a visual pun cum poem. VG+.

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15 Oct ONE OF 100 NUMBERS THAT JUST HAPPEN. 1995.

Posted at 12:50h in Artist's Postcards

Vermont: Longhouse, 1995
8.8 x 10.8cm, 4pp black on green folding card - the internal poems have capitalised first letters which vertically read as the words CRATE DOOR, HOE, SOAP, BALSA and TWINE. The associated words create a description of each word eg.:

H eaven
O rders
E arth

Order comes from above - as it does when a gardener uses a hoe. VG+.

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03 Oct THE MASTLESS BARGES. 1995.

Posted at 20:32h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.5 x 8.5cm, 1pp, Artist's card with a quotation from Greenhill's "Sailing for a Living" describing a barge and its crew moving along the canal. The bottom half of the typography is deliberately obscured from the bottom as if misprinted - reflecting the text where the low level of the boats make it look like the men on board are walking just above the water. VG+.

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27 Sep THE ANNUNCIATION, AFTER FRA ANGELICO. 1995.

Posted at 20:25h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
11.3 x 14cm, 2pp, Artist's card with a photograph of a fishing boat. The title of the card is "The Annunciation, After Fra Angelico" which is a famous fresco in Florence showing an angel telling the supposed virgin Mary that she is pregnant. VG+. We do not know for certain but it may well be that the vessel's name is "The Annunciation". VG+.

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11 Sep ECHOES SERIES (ARBRE DE LA LIBERTE). 1995.

Posted at 14:51h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995 10.5 x 5cm, 4pp card with a 4pp insert. Two drawings - both concrete poems (or Calligrammes) one the original by Guillaume Apollinaire and the other by Ron Costley after Finlay's instruction. Apollinaire's Eloge de l'arbre has the text: "arbre qui fut la displante par Victor Hugo" - praising the socialist writer (the tree that was planted by Victor Hugo), Finlay's reflection becomes "Abre de la liberte et sa floraison"(Liberty tree and its flowering) a reference to the french Revolution and the symbolic trees shown at the feasts and celebrations. A lovely small concrete work. VG+. ...

27 Aug I DO SET MY BOW IN THE CLOUD. 1995.

Posted at 20:10h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
9.2 x 8cm, 4pp, Artist's card with a photograph of a airplane smoke trail in the sky which vaguely resembles a bow with an arrow prepared to fire. Internally there is a quotation from Genesis 9:13: " I do set my bow in the cloud" - which Finlay responds as "contrail". VG+.

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02 Aug FOR THE TEMPLES OF THE GREEKS…. 1995.

Posted at 19:33h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
8.3 x 19.2cm, 1pp, Artist's card with an elevation drawing of a modern warship with the various towers and gun placements being labelled as if they are the four types of classical columns found in Greek architecture. An amusing correspondence but the quotation "For the Temples of the Greeks our homesickness last forever" comes from Odysseus and his longing for the familiar sights of his home. That gives this war machine a poignancy that the forms of sheet metal itself are unlikely to encourage. The beauty of Michael Harvey's line drawing also makes the boat a thing of classical form.
This image was also a much larger print and one of Finlay's most popular late works. VG+.

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20 Jul PURSE SEINE. 1995.

Posted at 19:44h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp, Artist's card with concrete poem drawn by Michael Harvey in orange and green. The words Purse and Seine are jumbled up the former words all on top, the latter below. The mass of the words comes to resemble the actual Purse Seine - a form of netting that is vertical and surrounds the fish - usually netting far more catch than more traditional formats. VG+.

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19 Jul A SAIL IN PLATO. 1995.

Posted at 19:26h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
14.8 x 10.5cm, 1pp, Artist's card printed black on dark "gold". A quotation from the "Parmenides dialogue" where the divisibility of things is discussed is reprinted because of the use of the idea of a SAIL (the maritime imagery appealing to Finlay one presumes) and whether if it covers more than one man it is still a single thing. In the original a sail is compared to the sky - is the sky over everything or is just part of the sky covering the earth? VG+.

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19 Jul 2 NOTICES. 1995.

Posted at 19:19h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
5.1 x 5.1cm, 8pp, concertina fold single sheet printed black on dark blue. The two notices are 1. PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE BOATS and 2. PLEASE DO NOT SINK THE FLOWERS.
The first was one of the earliest Finlay works that was found in Stoneypath (before the renaming to Little Sparta) next to the Backdoor Pond. The second is a proposal to be placed next to the Giant Victoria Water Lillies in the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh - such lilies do look as if they cannot be sunk. The humour in both "notices" being the misuse of the verbs. VG+.

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17 Jul OVID, THE METAMORPHOSES. 1995.

Posted at 19:11h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
15.1 x 11cm, 2pp. A quote from Ovid of how a cottage was transformed by the Gods into a temple is set by John R Nash in an attractive typographic manner (with three different but similar fonts) and with the final lines "AND THE THATCH TO SHINING GOLD' printed in gold ink. The text is not an exact translation from the original but a reworking (itself a transformation).
Finlay is often attracted to Ovid's most famous texts and this description in many ways is also apposite to the creation of the Garden Temple in Little Sparta from an ordinary farm building. VG+.

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17 Jul KENNST DU. 1995.

Posted at 09:31h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
13.2 x 9.5cm, qpp card printed black on light blue. A quote from Goethe "Kennst du das Land, is in part translated by Finlay but with alterations (as in his Echoes series) - the land becomes the sea, the lemon trees become ships, flowers become orange net-floats and so on."...