24 Sep

Posted at 18:33h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
23.6 x 15.9cm, 4pp folding card. A uncredited (although looks like Gary Hincks' style) painting of a Liberty Tree but here with chains and locks around it (the American and French revolutionary symbols did not have any locks but were just trees left free to grow). Under the tree Finlay has added the names of the French and other critics who had disingenuously and erroneously accused him of being anti-semite. A simple visual poetic attack on his enemies. VG+.

...

22 Sep

Posted at 22:35h in Poems in folders

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
13.6 x 8.9cm, 4pp light brown outer folder. Internally a 13.6 x 8.9cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:

Sackcloth

Stars
woven
in

The stars are compared with the rough hew of the flax cloth.

This is one of a series of works which the Wild Hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.

...

22 Sep

Posted at 22:27h in Poems in folders

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
19.5 x 11.8cm, 4pp light brown outer folder with a drawing of a piece of turf. Internally a 19.5 x 11.8cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:

GOLDEN AGE

golden fields
golden flocks
golden flutes
golden hedgerows
golden hives
golden honeycombs
chuckie-stone currency

The repetition of golden initially refers to the light at the end of a summer day but turns into the colour of bees and their honeycombs. The abrupt last line is the key to the poem - a chuckie-stone is a stone that is thrown by children. The poem is a memory of a "golden age" when everything appeared bright and new.

This is one of a series of works which the Wild Hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.

...

08 Sep

Posted at 20:34h in Exhibition Catalogues

Aachen: Neueraachenkunstverein, 1990
21 x 15cm, 20pp. Card covers and printed green dustjacket. Exhibition catalogue for a solo show of mostly printed editions. Ten works reproduced in colour and b/w. Essay by Pia Simig in German. VG+.

...

24 Aug

Posted at 18:40h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
5.0 x 17.8cm, 2pp card. One side has the text: "A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE" accredited to "Gertrude Jekyll" and on the other side "ARROWS ARE ARROWS ARE ARROWS" accredited to "Hereclitus". Jekyll was an influential turn of the century gardener and the quote is an adaption of Shakespeare as is the fake quotation offered as Hereclitian. The latter, of course, stressed the lack of repetition in history. A jokey work. VG+.

...

17 Aug

Posted at 21:15h in Monographs & Essays

Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1990
24.5 x 19cm, 44pp plus card wrappers,. First edition of the first catalogue raisonne published by Finlay's then dealer covering the entire range of prints, artist books and cards published by the Press and also the Morning Star Press. Extensive but with many mistakes regarding dates and sizes - however in fairness for years this was the only documentation of the output of the press for collectors. VG+.

...

30 Jul

Posted at 16:18h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990

21 x 21cm, white outer folder content of two 21 x 21cm b/w lithographs by Gary Hincks which parody Victor Vasarely's op-art style. In both (one in outline, the other solid black) the outer square shapes slowly turn into guillotine blades much as OpArt works often show slow gradual change in shapes.
This is a visual poem which is made more poignant with the two quotes on the inside of the folder - one from Vasarely: "Let us first kill in ourselves egocentricity" and another from Anacharsis Cloots - the French anarchist - "France you will be happy when you are finally cured of individuals." by their addition the work reveals itself as being about the tension between the individuals role in the state versus his/her rights to individual liberty. VG+.

...

25 Jul

Posted at 16:48h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
42.2 x 14.7cm (folded size) offset lithograph which when open displays the elevations of the finials - drawn by Andrew Townsend- a note on the outside of the card points to the "pineapple" finials visually being like fragmentation grenades and that the use of brick and stone being a poetic metaphor of the philosophies of Terror and Virtue during the French Revolution. One of 250 copies made. VG+.

...

22 Jul

Posted at 22:11h in Poems in folders

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
17.6 x 11cm, 4pp grey outer folder with a drawing of a guillotine. Internally a 17.6 x 11cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:

1794.

The steeples fell silent.


The guillotine tolled.

1794 was the year in which the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre became the most powerful centralised body in the state (or at least Paris). There had been a concerted campaign against the church by many of the Revolutionaries (but not Robespierre who thought it counter-productive) and churches and parts in many parts of France were closed. What was not closed was the guillotine. The tolling of that instrument of death is compared with the silence of the bells.
This is one of a series of works which the Wild hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.

...

21 Jul

Posted at 08:04h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
9.8 x 9.3cm, 16pp and card wrappers and printed light green dust jacket. Drawings by Kathleen Lindsley of various baskets containing bread, wheat leaves and finally, heads are denoted as DOMESTIC, PASTORAL, PARNASSIAN and SUBLIME. Again Finlay sees the extremes of the Terror as somehow pure and homely even if evil.
Staples are a bit rusted else VG+. ...

21 Jul

Posted at 07:52h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
21.2 x 3.6cm, 4pp and blue card wrappers. Internally there is a text by Finlay merging Saint-Just and Rimbaud.

"Whoever desecrates sepulchres is banished."

A poem about respecting tradition and by extension classicism. VG+

...

Shopping cart0
There are no products in the cart!
Continue shopping