29 Mar

Posted at 15:34h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.2 x 10.5cm, 4pp card with a drawing of a plane with two cockpits that share wings - probably a North American F-82 Twin Mustang - and the text FINIS AMORIS UT DUO UNUM FIANT which translates into Love ends as two are made one. The legend originally was found in the frontispiece of The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (1914) by Pavel Florensky, a Russian thologian, where two cupids seem conjoined in an etching of a statue. VG+.

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12 Mar

Posted at 15:32h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
16.6 x 11.9cm, 2pp card printed in full colour with an image of the Finlay public work at The Haagse Stream and Court Pool inn den Haag. The entrance of the stream into the larger pool has ET IN ARCADIO EGO in stone above it - given the history of the watercourse which was at one time heavily polluted due to passing through a city dump, then the work reflects the meaning of the original Poussin painting. This card was sent to Janet Boulton by Finlay and has a note in blue ink on it: "Thank you for the lovely momento. To treasure alone with the table sculpture. What a relevant surprise. Love Ian." We hold an exhibition catalogue for this work which is catalogued in the relevant section and discusses it in more details. VG+.

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06 Mar

Posted at 13:44h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
19 x 16.5cm, 1pp card printed black and brown on white. A drawing of A one masted boat by Nina Ivancic is denoted by Finlay as:

FOLK BOAT
billyboy

Billyboy boats are "bluff-bowed one-masted trading vessels, native to the NE of England." and there is a warning "not to be confused with the famous Folkboat ('people's yacht')". VG+.

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28 Feb

Posted at 13:37h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
19.5 x 18.8cm, 1pp card printed black and brown on cream. A line art drawing of the patched sails of a boat with the number FY 27 by Andrew Whittle is conjoined with a quote from Peter Anson's Mariners of Brittany.

"The trousers and jumpers of the men vary in hue from the brightest orange vermilion to the palest rose pink, and are decorated with every imaginable sort of patch."

A patch is defined by Finlay as Patch, n, a whole part.
As noted in other works Finlay saw the act of patching as denoting care and giving worth to things. This image is also found in the unique large sculptural work FY27 in this collection. . VG+.

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26 Feb

Posted at 11:30h in Artist's Books

Barcelona: Joan Miro Foundation, 1999
16 x 11cm, 48pp, with black boards and tipped on title label. This book accompanied the exhibition "Variations on Several Themes' and is identified often as an exhibition catalogue but this is incorrect - it is an artist's book in itself.
The first pages of the publication have a new concrete poem which is based on Christina Rossetti's devotional works, and Eugen Gomringer's Constellation form of visual poetry. The words boat, net, wind, fire, vine, flock, sun, lamb are recombined in different placings to create five different imagined scenes.
At the back of the book there is an essay by Thomas A. Clark in English who points out that the structure of the poem is from Gromringer's 5 mal 1 konstellation' and the words used are from Rossetti's "Letter and SPirit". That essay is better than I can write here so we shall leave this here although we will point out that in the late 90s religion as a subject begins to be more apparent in Finlay's work.
We have re-classified this book as an artist's book and not just a catalogue

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20 Feb

Posted at 13:21h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
16 x 14.4cm, 4pp card printed black on white with a linocut by Jo Hincks of a stern of a ship and its wake.. A text below by Finlay notes:

a solitary laner
swelling and vanishing
opened at the stern

Comparing the wake with a country lane winding behind (or in front ) of you. VG+.

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04 Feb

Posted at 12:09h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
6.2 x 6.3cm, 4pp card printed black on grey. Two poems both inspired by Bishop Andrewes from his "Devotions" collection of prayers. The firs shows the word as the sea (as often found in Christian iconography) and the second the land as the sea. Both list objects and animals found in (firstly) Christian preaching and secondly during a walk. VG+.

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01 Feb

Posted at 12:04h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
10 x 12.5cm, 2pp card printed black on light blue. Finlay lists nine of the Flower Class Corvettes that served in the Battle of the Atlantic as if they were a calendar - they are ordered in the months that they first sailed after completion. The list is also reminiscent of how the French revolutionary calendar renamed months after objects. VG+.

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29 Jan

Posted at 12:00h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
7.6 x 12.6cm, 2pp card printed black on grey. Finlay's text is a one word poem:

An Appreciation of the RN Flowers
Perennials

The use of Perennials - a plant that comes out every year reminds us of the annual commemorations for those who fought in our wars. VG+.

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20 Jan

Posted at 11:08h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9 x 7.4cm, 19pp, plus turquoise card covers. Content of three drawings of flowers by Jo Hincks along with quotations about warships - all from the Flower Class of corvettes - found in a book by Preston & Raven from 1942. Each quotation gives the drawing its subject - for instance:

Anemone, Bluebell
Ships with
original
sheer and flare.

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