Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (c. 1990)
30 x 42, 1pp offset printed green on white site map of Little Sparta by Gary Hincks with a number of "Detached Sentences on Gardening" and a key to major works. The map predates the later extension to the garden and grounds such as the formal garden with the bee hives - we estimate this was created c. 1990. The map was given to visitors to Little Sparta. Folded for storage else VG+.
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Dunsyre: Sue Finlay, n.d.
5.5 x 8.5cm, b/w business card for Sue Finlay offering her services as a reiki therapist (a pseudoscience based on non-touch massage) VG+.
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London: s.p., n.d. (c. 1987)
15 x 10.5cm, 1pp. Eight different cheaply printed postcards attacking Finlay by the Guardian art critic who had fallen out with the poet.
The attempt at parodying Finlay in a format popularised by the artist is mostly awful. Possibly one card hits the mark but the appropriation of an image from Anselm Kiefer of the artist "heil hitler"-ing is shameful, and most are poor attempts at revenge - one might forgive the drawing of Little Sparta with enemies all around, but the attack on Finlay for not being Scots is simply stupid (Finlay's parents were of Scottish heritage and Januszczak's one possible place of moral high ground was for Finlay's ill advised call for his repatriation given he was British), the claim of hypocrisy over bursaries does not stand up (Finlay took nothing after the dispute with the Arts Council), and the aggressive quote from FInlay whilst slightly damaging is just an example of Finlay's polemic when angry. Angry letters are not meant to be poetry.
Here is a hard truth for Waldemar Januszczak, when he has gone and his columns in a newspaper long forgotten (most newspaper articles are forgotten in a week after all) Finlay will still be celebrated for his artistic achievements. That must hurt. All VG+. Very scarce.
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London: Audio Arts, 1987
13 x 33.5cm, 1pp - folded. The colour insert for the audio arts magazine - without the cassette - which features Finlay's breakthrough A View to the Temple installation on the cover (guillotines with etched text on blades). The actual magazine did not feature Finlay on the tape so this is cover only. VG+.
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London: Country Life, July 18 1996
31.5 x 23.5cm, 96pp plus original wrappers. A single number of this popular journal which has 4pp (mostly of large colour photographs by Clive Boursnell) of Little Sparta and an article by Alan Powers. The cover of the magazine also show the Present Order is the Disorder of the Future work in situ in the grounds of the farm. Slight wear to wrappers else VG+.
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30 x 21cm, 4pp b/w xerox copy of an article on Finlay by Graham Rose in the Observer Sunday Supplement specifically discussing the poet's interest in Albert Speer's garden in Spandau prison. A fair discussion and Finlay explains early on in the article that using symbols of evil in art does not mean that an artist is supporting such symbols. VG.
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London: Jonathan Cape, 1986
21.4 x 14.7cm, 5664pp plus original boards and pictorial dust jacket. First edition of this "guide" to "follies". This was the book that made Finlay so angry because of the short review of Stoneypath (later Little Sparta) and his ire is understandable. The paragraph reads:
Near the village of DUNSYRE about two miles west of the Peebles-Lanark border is Stoneypath, a bogland garden developed from 1967 onwards by the peet Ian Hamilton Finlay. it is a fine and justly famed new garden, but although there isd an Apollo Temple, a broken column or two, and an avalanche of poetic mottoes and inscriptions, the insistent namedropping of pastoral painters and writers and garden theorists tend to get on one's nerves. Everything in Stoneypath is on such a small and fragile scale that one starts hankering for something more manly, like a Wallace monument or a sturdy Gothick eye catcher."
Given Little Sparta has been voted by artists, critics and the general public to be the greatest Scottish artwork of modern times, it is fair to judge Gwyn Headley and Wim Meulenkamp harshly. Their comment " insistent namedropping" is crass and clearly shows that the works they saw were beyond their capabilities. VG+.
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Edinburgh: Reaktion Books, 1985
21 x 15cm, 4pp. Black on white offset lithographic subscription leaflet for the extensive monograph on Finlay by Abrioux. Two b/w images of a sundial and the front garden. VG+.
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n.p.: n.p., n.d. 10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. One of Finlay's best known cards but here not officially published by the Wild Hawthorn Press. We have added this to the Miscellany section until we find out who published it and whether it was officially reprinted or not. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1984)
21 x 15cm, 1pp printed red on cream paper. The order form for the two limited edition medals issued by Finlay as commemorations of the Little Sparta wars - First Battle of Little Sparta and Terror/Virtue. Scarce ephemera from the period when Finlay took on the might of Strathclyde Region over local property taxes and sort of won. Central vertical crease else VG.
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30 x 21cm, 1pp vintage b/w xerox copy of two articles one of which is a news report of a theft from a Hindu temple and the other of Christie's auctioneers holding the artworks taken by Strathclyde Region under a poinding of items in Finlay's Garden Temple after their dispute over what they claimed were unpaid rates. Finlay has added a typed headline above both "CHECKPOINT SANDY STRIKES AGAIN!" and circulated the xerox to friends and supporters to point out the hypocrisy of the situation. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1983)
21 x 15cm, 1pp printed red on cream paper. The announcement leaflet for the first of two limited edition medals issued by Finlay as a commemoration of the Little Sparta wars - this medal is the First Battle of Little Sparta with an image of a machine gun where the air holes on the barrel are compared with the holes on an arcadian flute. Central vertical crease else VG. Scarce ephemera from the period when Finlay took on the might of Strathclyde Region over local property taxes and sort of won.
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