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+.
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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+.
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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+.
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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+.
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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+.
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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+.
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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+. ...
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+
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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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