Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.. (1987)
17 x 13cm, 1pp artist's card with a photograph of a sticker having been stuck to the outside spine of the Follies A National Trust Guide by Gwyn Headley and Wim Meulenkamp which Finlay had condemned for misrepresenting Little Sparta as a "folly". The sticker reads "Censored by the Saint-Just Vigilantes". ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
11.8 x 14.1cm, 2pp card. An appropriated drawing of a guillotine is matched with a text which shows only part of the name Headley (---LEY) as if the name of the main author of the National Trust publication "Follies" has been decapitated (the additional joke being that the part removed is the HEAD). Underneath the first there is the French text - "Je perds une tete" and under the guillotine "J'en trouve une" - I have lost a head/I find one. VG+
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
13.6 x 8.2cm, 1pp Artist's card presenting a faux menu of Danton, followed by Hebert then Clooz followed by Meulenkamp and Headley. The first three names in order were guillotined under the orders of the Committee for Public Safety, the last two only in Finlay's revengeful fantasies.VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
18 x 13cm, 1pp Artist's card with an appropriated etching from 1793 - "Louis le Traître lis ta Sentence" which translates to "Louis the Traitor, read your sentence" below the image Finlay quotes Ian Barr, the Chairman of the Saltire Society as "He thought Follies an entertaining guide and enjoyed it". Clearly Finlay had added Barr to his enemies list. On the reverse there is a post-it note on which Finlay has written "A Follies War Card". VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
12.4 x 18.6cm, 4pp Christmas card black on handmade paper with the text:
Somewhere in the wood was shining the
little red lantern of Christmas...
Minneapolis: Hermetic Press, 1986
7x 5m, 4pp Artist's card with the "dialectic" poem:
river
OCEAN
lake
Lake being the synthesis of the thesis (river) and anti-thesis OCEAN.
Torn edges as per the printing and joint with the original Hermetic Press envelope. VG+. Scarce.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
14 x 18.4m, 1pp Artist's card with a b/w photograph of a field of sheep near Little Sparta by . Finlay writes underneath "The wine-dark sea, the turnip-marbled field" and "The Hyperborean Apollo of Walter Pater's Apollo in Picardy. In little Sparta he is identified with Saint-Just.". Greek mythology is mixed with Finlay's French revolutionary hero and the landscape which is a prosaic, rural version of Arcadia. VG+.
cm...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
18 x 13cm, 4pp Artist's card black on light blue (to reflect the colour of the flower) with a drawing of the forget-me-not on the front by Stephanie Kedik and a text:
Myosotis Sylvatica
Forget-me-Not
A wild
flower
within
Memory of a loved one is compared to a wild flower growing in the body. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
17.4 x 18.3m, 1pp Artist's card with a b/w photograph by Antonia Reeve of the road up to Little Sparta and the first gate encountered after reaching the sheep field. . Finlay writes underneath "Little Sparta's Eastern Frontier at the time of The First Battle of Little Sparta february 4 1983. The old gate marks the site of the barrier, which has since been removed." Checkpoint Charlie was the nickname for the best known crossing point between East and West Berlin during the cold war. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
3.1 x 13.3cm, 4pp Artist's card printed black and red on white - the word MARAT is extended to MARATAPLAN! Tthe typography and colour changes emphasis the "rataplan!" which is onomatopoeia - the sound of a drumbeat. The open card causes the neologism MARATAPLAN! to be a clarion call for the ideologue Marat. VG+.
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N.p. (Glasgow?): n.p. (Hughson Gallery), 1986
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp. Gallery issued postcard (who represented Margot Sandeman) with a reproduction of a painting by the artist based on a poem / "definition work" by her friend, and oft collaborator, Finlay. Each of the 11 painted works had Finlay's original hand-typed poem glued onto the canvas and Finlay later signed all the works on the back of the canvass to given them the status of a work by himself as a collaborator. There were 11 such paintings made.
The definition here reads:
SHEAF, n. a bouquet of corn, grasses, wild flowers etc in the likeness of a torch.
These works were forgotten about until a visit to Sandeman by Paul Robertson in c. 2008 brought them to his notice. Sandeman agreed to exhibit the works at Robertson's gallery and to produce an artist's book together reproducing the works. However within a week of Robertson's visit Richard Demarco found out about the paintings via his assistant who had also visited Sandeman and Demarco went to the artist (who he had known for many years) and took the works away with him when he left. Robertson was not able to exhibit them or publish the book. They were later exhibited posthumously to Sandeman's sad death at Summerhall by Demarco - ironically at a time when Robertson was the visual arts curator for the building.
VG+ - an unknown artist's card presumably because it was not published with Finlay's knowledge. Very scarce.
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Glasgow: Hughson Gallery, 1986
10.5 x 15cm, 4pp. Gallery issued postcard (who represented Margot Sandeman) with a reproduction of a painting by the artist based on a poem / "definition work" by her friend, and oft collaborator, Finlay. Each of the works had his original typed poem glued onto the canvas and Finlay later signed all the works on the back of the canvass to given them the status of a work by himself. There were c. 12 such paintings made.
These works were forgotten about until a visit to Sandeman by Paul Robertson in c. 2008 brought them to his notice. Sandeman agreed to exhibit the works at Robertson's gallery and to produce an artist's book together reproducing the works. However within a week of Robertson's visit Richard Demarco found out about the paintings via his assistant who had also visited Sandeman and Demarco went to the artist (who he had known for many years) and took the works away with him when he left. Robertson was not able to exhibit them or publish the book. They were later exhibited posthumously to Sandeman's sad death at Summerhall by Demarco - ironically at a time when Robertson was the visual arts curator for the building.
VG+ - an unknown artist's card presumably because it was not published with Finlay's knowledge. Very scarce.
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