Ian Hamilton Finlay - Unoriginal Sins

22 May SIX PROPOSALS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF STOCKWOOD PARK NURSERIES. 1986. SIX PRINTS IN FOLDERS.

Posted at 14:06h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
Six separate prints - each 27 x 34cm in unprinted folders and outer printed folder. One of 250 copies.
Each print in this portfolio reproduces a drawing or watercolour in one colour for Finlay's six proposals for the garden nurseries in Luton. Each proposal is a definition of a word associated with open nature such as "Flock" but with a classical Greek twist. Drawings were by Gary Hinks.
Ref: Murray 6.18.

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21 May TERROR IS THE PIETY OF THE REVOLUTION. A COMMENTARY. 1986.

Posted at 08:53h in Wild Hawthorn Press

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
11 x 7.7cm, 16pp with printed card covers. A text by Stoddart on sculptural works installed in the Garden Temple considers in the main just one - Terror is the Piety of the Revolution - where the author claims it is a work open to interpretation but "it clears a no-man's-land between the two factions of Neo-classicists and Modernists."
Murray places this in his catalogue raisonne as the last work in the "Wild Hawthorn Press" section - by which he really means it is the last of the books/works published by other authors who are not Finlay himself. The gap in time between the 13th publication in that section and this one is 20 years - which makes us question that categorisation although Murray is right (without actually saying so) to note that Finlay did not publish any other authors other than himself and collaborations after 1968 (with the cessation of Poor. Old Tired. Horse.), We have kept to Murray's organisation scheme here but with slight qualms. Scarce book - VG+ although very slight rust to one staple

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07 May SCULPTURE IN THE PARK. THE IAN HAMILTON FINLAY SCULPTURE GARDEN. 1986?

Posted at 11:19h in Exhibition Catalogues

Luton: Luton Borough Council, n.d. (1986?)
21 x 15cm, 8pp. A catalogue for the recently installed sculptural garden by Finlay at Stockwood Park in Luton. Seven images in blue and black duotone of the works and a map as well as an anonymous essay. Finlay issued a portfolio of prints with the proposals for this garden in the same year. VG+.

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25 Apr THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF IAN HAMILTON FINLAY. RUBBER STAMPED ENVELOPE. 1986.

Posted at 13:23h in Unique Works

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
Folded empty DL manilla envelope with black rubber stamp impression with the text: "THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF IAN HAMILTON FINLAY".
This was an original small work sent by Finlay to Peter Townsend. It is a comment on Finlay's fight with Catherine Millet who bizarrely and wrongly accused Finlay of being an anti-semite. The envelope of course had no facts inside it - which was Finlay's view of his accuser's arguments. Unique thus. We presume other such envelopes were created given that Finlay had the rubber stamp made but we have never seen another example.

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21 Apr ENVELOPE WITH MANY RUBBER STAMPINGS SENT AS A GIFT WITH HANDWRITTEN NOTE. 1986. UNIQUE.

Posted at 22:02h in Letters + Documents

Little Sparta: Finlay, n.d. (1986)
Standard hand addressed DL manilla postal envelope notable for many red and blue rubber stamp impression added by Finlay to the front and the back. Sent as a gift to the editor of Art Monthly, Peter Townsend (not the musician). JOINT: 15 x 21cm, black ink on paper - with a handwritten note to Townsend: "A little medley of "insulting" war stamps. Evidently authoritarians are people of very delicate sensibilities and very little capacity to read and think.". VG.
JOINT:
A standard mailing envelope hand addressed to The Editor Art Monthly by Finlay and rubber stamped with "The peopole has a right to rigorous bureaucracy.". Opened neatly.

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20 Apr HERECLITIAN VARIATIONS. 1986.

Posted at 20:22h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
11 x 9cm, 20pp plus overside printed card wrappers. Quotations from Hereclitus are used to illuminate the missile attack on HMS Sheffield on 4 May 1982. The classical words all regard the transformation of water and air into fire - which ends with the quote "Exocet steers all." which is the line about Zeus - "Lightning steers all" but with the name of the missile replacing the God's weapon of choice. Finally a polarised image of the horrific attack on the warship is reproduced in b/w. VG+.

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20 Mar 4 BLADES. 1986.

Posted at 17:51h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
7.6 x 8cm, printed outer folder content of six 7.6 x 8cm, 1pp cards. Each card has a drawing of a guillotine blade by Hincks with a quotation on it such as:
"The government of the Revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Terror is an emanation of virtue."
by Robespierre. Other quotes are from Denis Diderot, Nicolas Poussin and from Finlay himself who writes:
"Terror is the piety of the Revolution".
Finlay saw The Terror as in some sense pure - which was not an acceptance of the acts of the despots but a metaphysical impression of the firm beliefs of the Terrorists as being virtuous. The guillotine is often an image used in Finlay's works that stands for that purity as well as the fear and evil of man. VG+.
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17 Mar FOLLIES. A NATIONAL TRUST GUIDE. 1986.

Posted at 13:47h in Miscellany

London: Jonathan Cape, 1986
21.4 x 14.7cm, 5664pp plus original boards and pictorial dust jacket. First edition of this "guide" to "follies". This was the book that made Finlay so angry because of the short review of Stoneypath (later Little Sparta) and his ire is understandable. The paragraph reads:
Near the village of DUNSYRE about two miles west of the Peebles-Lanark border is Stoneypath, a bogland garden developed from 1967 onwards by the peet Ian Hamilton Finlay. it is a fine and justly famed new garden, but although there isd an Apollo Temple, a broken column or two, and an avalanche of poetic mottoes and inscriptions, the insistent namedropping of pastoral painters and writers and garden theorists tend to get on one's nerves. Everything in Stoneypath is on such a small and fragile scale that one starts hankering for something more manly, like a Wallace monument or a sturdy Gothick eye catcher."
Given Little Sparta has been voted by artists, critics and the general public to be the greatest Scottish artwork of modern times, it is fair to judge Gwyn Headley and Wim Meulenkamp harshly. Their comment " insistent namedropping" is crass and clearly shows that the works they saw were beyond their capabilities. VG+.

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15 Mar THE IDEA OF THE ARCADIAN SHEPHERDS IS CLEAR….. 1986.

Posted at 08:55h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.. (1986) 12.7 x 8.2cm, 2pp printed green and black on cream card. A text by Anthony Blunt (then the Queen's curator and later to be revealed as a traitor) from his book "The Paintings Of Poussin" explains the work Et in Arcadia Ego (Blunt refers to it as the Arcadian Shepherds - a lesser used title) which Finlay has often referred to in his works. The text has been altered however to suggest that the message on the tomb in the painting says "Terror" and Virtue" instead of Et In Arcadia ego. Finlay has referenced the French Revolution by this substitution and his view that terror was a direct consequence of virtue and that the former is somehow a pure form of conscience.

On the back of the card is a reminder on the third anniversary of the "Strathclyde Region's assault on the Garden Temple" where the local authority took in lieu of disputed rates two works by Finlay. The card complains that the Scottish Arts Council and the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Arts Minister have not "upheld the law" in the artist's opinion. VG+. ...

09 Mar PEAR (THOMAS JEFFERSON’S GARDEN BOOK). 1986.

Posted at 10:05h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
9 x 10.5cm, 4pp artist's card with a line drawing of a pear by Stephanie Kedik on the front, and internally two poems:

very fine
late cherry

fine late
large pear

The poems reference texts in Thomas Jefferson's garden as noted in the book he wrote in 1769. Pears and cherries were important to the President and he delighted in growing both. VG+. ...

04 Feb CARD FOR THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST BATTLE OF LITTLE SPARTA FEBRUARY 4 1983. 1986. WITH RUBBER STAMP IMPRESSION VERSO.

Posted at 10:18h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
11.5 x 17.7, 1pp card with noting the third anniversary of Strathclyde Regions "assault" on the Garden Temple at Little Sparta below which Finlay has written printed green on cream:BR> "all wars grow mossy".
The line reminds the reader that all statues and commemorative stones ultimately are covered in growth and the event forgotten. This is one of my favourite Finlay aphorisms - time passes and what seems memorable goes from public consciousness.
This card on the back has a black rubber stamp impression from Finlay that reads "FEBRUARY 4/DAY OF THE FLUTE". VG+.

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03 Feb URN. (GARDEN POEM). 1986. FOLDING PRINT.

Posted at 08:24h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
81 x 21.8cm, black on green folding offset lithograph. A concrete poem with the repeat words urn and column placed one above the other (with column broken up into COL and UMN) to create the vision of a column topped with an urn. One of the more simple of such poems but there is an additional element of the the strong vertical lines of the ascenders in the font to reflect the vertical lines one might get in a classical column.

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