Artist's Postcards - Unoriginal Sins

23 Aug MR. GREENE AND THE WHITE BRIGANDS. 1987.

Posted at 14:05h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
156.5 x 11.7cm, 2pp card. Two quotations - the first from Cobban's History of Modern France which explains how the Great Fear during the French revolution was based on false reporting and a quote from an unidentified London newspaper that Jonathan Cape (who Finlay was at war with over the Follies book) were promoting rumours that were promoted by the Saint-Just Vigilantes group "a romantic Scottish nationalist group". Clearly the S-J Vigilantes were not per se nationalist (some may have been, others certainly were not) and Finlay here is pointing to the way Jonathan Cape tried to befuddle the argument by faking up stories. VG+

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08 Aug A PROPOSAL FOR THE FURKA PASS 1987. 1987.

Posted at 12:27h in Artist's Postcards

N.P. (Switzerland): Furkaart, 1987 10.5 x 15cm, 2pp postcard issued with a badly photoshopped photograph by Marco Schlbig of Finlay's proposal for the Furka Pass (a "signature" of F. Hodler etched into a found stone - thus "signing" the landscape). VG+. Scarce....

08 Aug LES SANS-CULOTTES. 1987.

Posted at 09:33h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.. (1987) 12.7 x 8.2cm, 4pp artist's card which displays a drawing by Laurie Clark on the front of a row of trees which might be in winter and without leaves - hence the suggestion that they are without breeches. VG+. ...

20 Jul A FAVOURITE SUBJECT OF ART. 1987.

Posted at 15:47h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
4 x 9.4cm, 4pp. Artist's attack postcard with internally:

Headley and Meulenkamp are being flayed alive -

Cape and The National Trust are growing ass-ears."

Finlay curses his enemies with imagery found in renaissance art and, in particular, the painting Apollo and Marsyas. VG+.

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06 Apr MYRIAM SOLOMON OWNS THE SECOND WORLD WAR…. 1987.

Posted at 08:44h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
9.6 x 15.2cm, 1pp. Artist's card with the text "Myriam Salomon owns the Second World War and you are not allowed to mention it." Salomon was Catherine Millet and made public pronouncements about Finlay that linked him to the trial of the former Nazi Klaus Barbie - an actual mass murderer and torturer who was in the Gestapo. Finlay's card is not exactly high art but perhaps can be forgiven when Salomon suggested some similarities between the poet and the real Nazi. VG+.

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03 Apr LOUIS TREIZE. 1987.

Posted at 08:53h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
9.6 x 15.2cm, 1pp. Artist's card.
Louis Treize
Louis Quatorze
Louis Quinze
Louis Seize
Louis Cane
The ascending list of French Kings ends with the name of a French modernist abstract painter who eventually returned to figuration and a more naturalistic style. The list of monarchs ended temporarily the House of Bourbon until the temporary restoration post Napoleon. VG+.

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02 Apr A ONE-WORD POEM FOR THE LADIES OF ART PRESS, PARIS. 1987.

Posted at 08:34h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
8 x 19cm, 1pp. Artist's card with a one-word poem:
A ONE-WORD POEM FOR THE LADIES OF ART PRESS, PARIS. 1987.
Knitters!
An attack on Catherine Millet and her assistant Myriam Salomon - comparing them to the women who sat next to the guillotine and knitted as victims were decapitated. VG+.

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15 Mar MARCH 15, 1987. 1987.

Posted at 21:11h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
14.6 x 11.1cm, 1pp Artist's card with an image of a drum with sticks printed black on red. The card announces "March 15, 1987. 4th anniversary of Strathclyde Region's Assault on the Garden Temple, Little Sparta: how war flies". VG+.

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13 Mar APHRODITE OF THE TERROR. 1987

Posted at 13:41h in Artist's Postcards

Berlin: Galerie Jule Kewenig, 1987 15 x 10.5cm, 2pp gallery postcard showing a b/w photograph by Marco de Valdivia of the title work on the front, verso gallery details. ...

08 Mar GREAT MINDS / THINKING ALIKE. 1987?

Posted at 09:52h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Committee of Public Safety/Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.. (1987?) 15 x 21cm, 1pp artist's card quoting two letters by Jonathan Hirschfeld and Michael Schmidt in Art Monthly and the Times Literary Supplement which bear remarkable similarities in their texts - hinting at a deliberate campaign to attack Finlay during the absurd attacks on Finlay that he was somehow a fascist because of his use of swastikas in the imagery of his work. VG+. ...

05 Feb ARBRE DE LA LIBERTE. 1987.

Posted at 09:19h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
164.2 x 12cm,4pp artist's card with a concrete poem where the text "Arbre de la liberte et sa floraison" is shaped to look like a tree. A liberty tree was often planted in France (and the USA before then) as a symbol of the nation's desire for freedom.
Slight crease top left else VG=.

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05 Feb ART PRESS, PARIS. 1987.

Posted at 09:10h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
16.7 x 13.1cm, 1pp artist's card with a parody of an advertisement for the publication edited by Catherine Millet. The faux advert includes a list of song titles from the war such as "We're gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line" and "The White Cliffs of Dover" - and "other World War II Nazi marching songs".
Millet had attacked Finlay because she had seen a jokey reference on a house washing line at Little Sparta which was labelled "Siegfried Line" and claimed this as proof of Nazi sympathies.
This, of course, to any British person is absurd as the songs were jokey attacks on Hitler sung by troops and civilians during the war - Millet seems not to have known that and as a result made a completely ignorant point. One of the more witty attacks on Millet by Finlay. VG+.

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