Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. Artist's card - the first in a series of cards showing fictional flags for mythical places. Here Utopia - the flag is white silkscreened onto a white card. Verso details. VG+. One of the scarcer "flag" cards to find. ...
Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp. The bilingual texts have different meanings: in French Flotte de Peche is fishing fleet whereas the English Peach Flute is a musical instrument as well Flyte being a Dutch cargo boat (sometimes a French version of the same ship). Finlay also often uses fruit (because of their shapes being like hulls) as metaphors for boats. This work later was recreated as a neon in which the two groups of words are designed to look like ships with masts and hulls making the meaning much more obvious. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975.
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. The one of a series of "National Flags" created by Finlay - here a rectangle with cross hatching in green and light yellow. Cytheria is a reference to several things - the mythical country, the painting "Journey to Cytheria" which Finlay has created prints and works about before and less known a bee which has green and yellow stripes. The colours nonetheless have the feel of those of an island landscape (vegetation and sand) and that is probably the more likely visual correspondence here. A flag for a desirable place to visit. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975.
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. The second of four "National Flags" created by Finlay - here a green rectangle with a skull and crossbones top left. Arcadia, was of course, a rural utopia, a place of perfection but in its most famous form it is in the Poussin painting ET ARCADIA EGO where a crypt is found with the inscription carved on it. It is a reminder of humanity's fate to die no matter how wonderful the life one lives. The "pirate" symbol here has the same function although the flag taken as a whole would suggest the viewer should be cautious. Finlay has created many words based on the Poussin. VG+
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975.
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp. Artist's postcard with a b/w image of an Oerlikon cannon set above a text in English, German and French, about the siting of sculptures:
"Poised against a natural background of vegetation, sculpture can inform the landscape or a garden with a new and tranquillising significance which the beholder finds spontaneously communicated to himself."
Apart from the ironies of "tranquillising" and "spontaneously communicated" when referring to a faster than sound weapon system are dark humour, this is one of Finlay's many cards that show weapons hidden in countryside (hence a reference to the Poussin painting "Et in Arcadia Ego") but also is a "homage" to Max Bill the designer and architect in that the gun's hard edges has similarities to certain works by him and in that the quote is from one of his books on architectural theory.. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.
6 x 24cm, 4pp (printed internally with asymmetric fold such that part of the card is hidden until opened). Artist's postcard with a drawing by Ron Costley of seven swans - the first 6 are made up from number "2"s and the hidden last one is a "7". A visual poem. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.
8.7 x 11.7cm, 4pp. Artist's card with a painting by Karl Torok of a Finlay cotton-reel (also known as a bobbin) tank (a well known way of children to make such toys). The title also refers to the Churchill Bobbins tanks (the bobbin from the reel that was found at the front of these tanks which laid tracks or bridges) although the model here is not accurate to the latter's design. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.
12.6 x 4.7cm, 1pp. Black on blue bookmark with a drawing by Laurie Clark - at the top a ship with seven sails ( a schooner) which despite all of the masts is still only a "Lone Sail" and then an illustration of a double sundial which has been also denoted here as a "schooner" because similarity of the multiple gnomons to multiple sails. VG+
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.
6.5 x 1.7cm, 6pp. Black on white printed on one side only. The folded card shows on the front an elevation (drawn by Michael Harvey) of a U-Boat conning tower which when the card is opened is additionally shown in end elevation to be a sculpture on grass (a cow is standing next to the structure) and on the final panel a title text and the sub-heading - "Plan for projected U-boat sculpture". VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.
9.5 x 5cm, 12pp (single folded sheet). Black on cheap green card with the text: "Who owned the last Norfolk Wherry" and if the card is turned ninety degrees the answer is given as "Messrs. Woods, Sadd & Moore". and a repeated drawing by Michael Harvey. The card (the least attractive, or interesting that Finlay made to our opinion) regards the loss of the wherry boats that used to be found on the Norwich Broads. Messrs. Woods, Sadd & Moore were barley and seed merchants and Finlay finds the partners' names to be evocative of the countryside and a lost past. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.
9.9 x 9.9cm, 2pp. A diamond pattern is reproduced in pink and grey. The title refers to the brightly patched or patterned character from commedia dell'arte and Finlay was interested in the paintings of Picasso where such characters were portrayed. Finlay in other works such as La Belle Hollondaise (itself a Picasso painting) displays patches as the main elements in the work: a patch is a repair to save something from being destroyed and in the poet's works is an icon of love or care. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. Artist postcard with two drawings by Martin Fidler) which are similar to those jokes often seen in children's comics. The first is "The Mexican Navy - and the image could be seen as both a carrier with circling aircraft and wave AND a sombrero. the second drawing is similar and entitled Sombraero (an alternative spelling of the hat) where the planes appear to be crashing onto the carrier. VG+.
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