Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1990)
13 x 8.8cm, 8pp plus card covers. Artist's book with two poems based on originals by Symons and Goethe:
Murmur
of many
waters
Rustle
of redbrown
reeds
(After Symons)
and
The trees
are all
so still
A little
breeze
springs up
(After Goethe).
Finlay often alters short works or selections by other poets or authors. The changes brings a new meaning to the translations - often modernising. VG+. ...
London: Victoria Miro, 1990
21 x 15cm, 520pp. Original wrappers. Cover with an illustration of Sea Poppy 1. A publisher's/dealer's catalogue listing the printed works available by Finlay with prices. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
21 x 19.7cm, blue on white lithograph with folded flap - the drawing by Hincks is of Robespierre's basic lodging and a quote from Lamartine's "History of the Girondists" describing the room and pointing out that it was in some manner as if "Jean-Jacques Rousseau had quitted his cottage to become the legislator of humanity, he could not have led a more retired of simple existence".
The poem by Finlay on the inner fold reads:
His bed
a meadow
his brow
in shadow
which places Robespierre's famous austerity as a landscape, his philosophy clearly from Rousseau's belief in the purity of nature.
VG+.
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Glasgow: Third Eye Centre 1990
83 x 59cm, orange and black offset lithographic exhibition poster for a number of public artworks by artists in Glasgow - including Judith Barry, Stuart Brisley, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Rosemary Trockel and Ian Hamilton Finlay amongst others. Finlay's work is still visible today - the Bridge Pillars at the River Clyde at the Broomielaw. VG.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
21.4 x 13.7cm, 4pp red outer folder. Internally a 21.4 x 13.7cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:
THE REVOLUTION
The Revolution is frozen; all
principles are weakened; there
remain only red bonnets
worn by Intrigue.
The waves in the rye grass
never reach the shore.
The poem is denoted to be from S-J (Saint-Just) and IHF (Finlay himself). Finlay is comparing Saint-Just's complaint of the stagnation of the revolution to the movement of grass in wind which may look similar to waves but do not affect the sea.
This is one of a series of works which the Wild hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
14 x 12.4cm, 4pp and printed card wrappers. Internally are two poems by Finlay.
TOMBSTONE
Sundial
without
a gnomon
opposite to
MARBLE
Parachute
of
the gods.
Both images are of stones. The tombstone is a reminder of the passing of time even without the gnomon. The beauty of marble has landed from the heavens above.
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A colour photograph (10 x 15cm) of two wooden works by Finlay - Water's Edge/Water Sedge and Stem & Stern. Date unknown.
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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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Basel: Stampa, 1990.
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp announcement card for a solo show with the work "Matisse chez Duplay" from 1989 on the front.. VG+.
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Nevers: Apac, 1990
15 x 21cm, 2pp typographic design announcement card for a joint show between the two friends and concrete poets. VG+.
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Nevers: Centre d'art contemporain, 1990
15 x 10.5cm, Two bound in printed 6pp single sheets in outer 8pp wrappers. Ostensibly an exhibition catalogue but in fact a joint artist's book with Cutts. The two sections of the inner fold outs have on the left a text "a line of thin pale blue" and the sheet is bound in by a blue thread. This is claimed to be a "translation of a line by Mallame (a poet who can lay claim to have published the first ever concrete poem). On the right section there is a text: "a line of thin pale red" and the sheet is bound in by a blue thread. This is a "translation of a line by Chenier." André Marie Chénier was a poet who lost his life on the guillotine only three days before the overthrown of Robespierre.
The first is a line referring to the horizon, the second to the line of blood from the throats of the murdered - opponents of the Terror sometime wore thin red threads around their body to indicate their mourning for the dead.
A lovely artist's book - the theme (red thread) of which Finlay used in sculptures such as Aphrodite of the Terror from 1987.
Explanatory texts in English and French. . VG+.
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Berlin: Galerie Jule Kewenig, 1990
49.5 x 39cm, 8pp (self cover). Exhibition catalogue in the form of a tabloid newspaper, two large b/w images of sculptural works by Finlay, an illustrated text in English and German on the Battle of Little Sparta and a double centre fold displaying the Crate Furniture for Sans-culottes. Folded into sixes as issued. VG+.
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