03 Aug

Posted at 20:40h in Object + Paper Multiples

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
16 x 30cm, 1pp black on white paper with a design for jam pot covers (the printed paper placed on the outside of jam lids). The design here is of two sundials. The text on the first has FERREA VIRGA EST/UMBRATILIS MOTUS (which Finlay slightly takes liberties and translates as "Stainless steel gnomon/porcelain hour") and "STAY-SAIL" on the second. The first describes the light on the imagined sundial and the latter is a reference to the voyage of a ship. Murray has this as 7.9 and seems to not know there were two variants in design and colour of paper.

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02 Aug

Posted at 17:33h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
13 x 13cm, 16pp plus card covers and printed dustjacket. Ten reproduced paintings of tanks with camouflage some in vegetation by John Borg Manduca are joined with short legends by Finlay.
1. "To do Poussin over again, for the sake of the War God." abuts a tank with its muzzle pointed right at the reader.
another reads:
6. Pure Cannon Law. Which is a pun on the homophone Cannon - a canon law being an ecclesiastical law.
Unusually there are adverts for other Finlay book on the flaps of the dust jacket. VG+.

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20 Jul

Posted at 17:44h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
12.5 x 10.3cm, 16pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket. Artist's book with drawings by Martin Fidler with questions by Finlay as if the reader is sitting a test on modern art.
Question 5 reads:" Write a short essay on the theme: The role of the non-flying glider in Post-19th Century non-representational art".
One significant part of Duchamp's Large Glass was called by the latter the "Glider" for instance. We believe we could pass Finlay's test.
VG+ condition.

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05 Jul

Posted at 21:31h in Artist's Books

Calais, Vermont: Z Press, 1977 23 x 15cm, 54pp plus card covers. First edition of this artist's book designed by Ron Costley and with a commentary by Stephen Bann. The emblems are all drawings of military machines such as tanks or battle ships acting as metaphors associated with Greek mythology:

SEMPRE FESTINA LENTE
HASTEN SLOWLY

is associated with a Sherman tank with a flail which was used to clear minefields - hence moving slowly in order to later move quickly.
This is one of only 50 copies signed and numbered by Finlay in black ink aside from the larger edition of 750 copies. Rare deluxe copy. VG+.

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26 Jun

Posted at 21:55h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
50 x 71cm, blue and light brown/orange silkscreen on white paper with a painting by Jim Nocholson of a group of sailors pulling a metal cable on the deck of a warship. The joke being the slogan having a double meaning - a campaign by the post office (then) for people to use the telegram service. This is one of a number of signed prints by Finlay. VG>

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21 Jun

Posted at 21:48h in Page Works & Contributions

Vermont: Z Press, 1977
23 x 16cm, 152pp. Original card covers. Poetry anthology edited by Kenward Elmslie.
Finlay contributes Carrier Strike by Finlay and Carl Heideken. Twenty pages (all printed recto) of photographs of toys made by Finlay (mostly boats and military machines) and a title page.
This is a substantial work by Finlay and often forgotten in his milieu. The ironing board that the toy planes are arranged on is denoted as "an aircraft carrier". This example is signed in green ink by Finlay in full on the title page of his section. Murray 8.9

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27 May

Posted at 22:01h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
9.5 × 12.1Bm, brown on cream paper in folded 4pp light brown folder. The image by Ron Costley is of a stag, a crab together on a beach with the text "Enchantment An ear-alluring sweetness." a line from "On Abstinence from Animal Food" by Porphyry. a translation of part of the poem is printed on the inside of the cover - translated by Thomas Taylor. The section tells of how stags and horses and crabs can be charmed by music - the point being that the animals have more consciousness than usually ascribed to them in the days of the Romans. Porphyry was an early advocate of vegetarianism on spiritual and ethical grounds and this work reflects that philosophy.

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01 May

Posted at 16:34h in Artist's Postcards

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
11.5 x 13.5cm, 2pp. The first of three cards which display a drawing (here by Gary Hincks) of an armoured tracked weapon from the second world war - this appears to be a US M7 Priest (from the double barrel) and it is camouflaged by the addition of tree branches on the sides (which one presumes are from birch trees). The birch is a tree that only grows from the East of Europe to the West but not South at all unless at high altitude (the tree does not like hot weather). This card reminds one - as with the other similar works - that even in the beauty of the countryside lurks death. As such it is a momento mori and not the first or last such work in Finlay's oeuvre. VG+.

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27 Apr

Posted at 21:35h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
56.5 × 68.7cm, two colour silkscreen with typography by Ron Costley from Finlay's instruction. The text is in both English and Latin - and the former says "Here perished Akagi Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Yorktown. The seahives consumed with their most choice swarms by their own flame-bearing honey."
This is a second work of a pair of prints based on the American fleet's victory over the Japanese at the battle of Midway on the Fourth of June 1942. The victory left many of the Japanese aircraft with nowhere to land once their carriers were destroyed and they had to ditch in the water and most drowned. One of 300 copies made - this has a companion print Battle of Midway I (see separate listing) These are very large prints - possibly the largest Finlay had ever made. A bit worn at the edges but overall VG.

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26 Apr

Posted at 21:25h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
56.5 × 68.7cm, two colour silkscreen with an image (by Ron Costley from Finlay's instruction) of beehives and trees some of which are aflame. The bees are flying between the hives some on the attack, others presumably in panic. A work based on the American fleet's victory over the Japanese at the battle of Midway on the Fourth of June 1942. The victory left many of the Japanese aircraft with nowhere to land once their carriers were destroyed and they had to ditch in the water and most drowned. One of 300 copies made - this has a companion print Battle of Midway II (see separate listing) These are very large prints - possibly the largest Finlay had ever made. A bit worn at the edges but overall VG.

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24 Apr

Posted at 15:02h in Exhibition & Other Posters

Cambridge: Kettle's Yard, 1975
60 x 42cm, olive green and black on white offset lithograph. The line drawing by Ron Costley is a copy of the outline of the original Bernini sculpture of the gods.
There is a text beneath the image: ‘APOLLO AND DAPHNE/ after Bernini/BIBLIOGRAPHY - Ovid, “Metamorphoses”; Rudolf Wittkower, “The Sculptures of Gian Lorenzo Bernini”; Historical Research Unit, Vol. 6, “Uniforms of the SS”’.
The classical story of the pair is one of desire - Apollo being consumed by lust for Daphne (thanks to Eros messing with his motivation) and Daphne desiring to remain chaste (Again this is down to Eros). When Apollo did manage to catch Daphne (presumably with rape his intent) Daphne's father Peneus turned her into an laurel tree - hence saving her virginity.
The Tate Gallery website claims Finlay explained that "the gods and nature ‘were behaving not unlike the Waffen SS’ (who were the first to use a smock with a leaf camouflage pattern, hence its identification with them).
This poster, in which Daphne is wearing a camouflage smock which replaces ‘nature’, was the poster for the title exhibition at the Cambridge Poetry Festival in 1977. It is the same image as in the print APOLLO AND DAPHNE. AFTER BERNINI. 1975 but with exhibition details added at the bottom. Slight crease top right else VG.

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