Manchester: PN Review, 1983
29.5 x 21cm, 64pp plus wrappers. A single number of this poetry and literature review - here with a major article with 45 small b/w photographs and an anonymous text by (probably by Finlay). Useful and interesting documentation. VG+.
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Belper: Aggie Weston's, 1983
25 x 20cm, 16pp plus card covers. Single number of Stuart Mill's publication which is in fact a Finlay artist's book with drawings by Rod Gathercole. Each page has a different abstract drawing of undergrowth and epigrams below - such as:
Camouflage proverb: If the bush fits, wear it. VG+
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press (?), Friday 17 June 1983
21 x 30cm, 2pp black on off-white newsprint. A parody newspaper with humorous articles about the dispute between Strathclyde Region and Ian Hamilton Finlay over rates for the Garden temple at Little Sparta. Spurious claims of Little Sparta having a "secret weapon: the "Tucker Gun" based on a 19060s abstract sculpture by WIlliam Tucker. The act of postering the Scottish Arts Council building is also reported on with an image of one of the posters gummed onto the columns outside the building. US troops are also reported to have landed in the Pentland Hills and are "preparatory to advancing into Strathclyde Region" and "taking over key points such as...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
17.8 x 12.8 cm , 2pp black on white artist's card with a photograph of Little Sparta by Norman Lockhart. In the reverse is a definition work: "CAMOUFLAGE, n. a presentation, a concealment".
The photographic image of the buildings are obscured (camouflaged) by foliage hanging from the trees in closeup. This is a common theme in Finlay how the placement of an object or a weapon in vegetation is a distant and subtle symbol of life being reminded of the ever potential of death. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
15.2 x 13cm, 1pp black on white artist's card with a drawing by Mark Stewart. The full title of of the card is "WITHIN THE SYSTEM OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE THE LEAST PART OF AN ELEVATION HAS THE ABILITY TO MAKE THE WHOLE KNOWN" a quotation from Quatremere de Quncy. The drawin is of the Dovecot at Littel Sparta with a gun barrel pushing out of double doors that seem to be made out of stacked hay bales creating a tank of sorts out of the building. The low lying gun barrel certainly could make the whole known if fired.
There is another card DOVECOTE from 1983 which shows the whole of the building form a distance with the barrel hard to see. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1984
20.9 x 14.8cm, 1pp. Two drawings of the dovecote at Little Sparta (by John Tetley) are shown without any text or explanation or even attribution. The second drawing is a detail of the bullding that appears to show a gun barrel sticking out of the double doors of the former dovecot. In truth the drawing isn't very clear in close up and this work seems somewhat out of place with Finlay's usual aesthetic apart from the general feeling that Little Sparta needed to be militarised after the initial raid by Strathclyde region. IN some sense the building has become an immobile tank.
Murray places this card at 1984 but out of order in his list (it is in the middle of a number of other cards published in 1983) and another version of the image with a drawing by Mark Stewart was also printed in mid 1983.. The exact date cannot be ascertained for sure so we have allocated this to 1983 for the proceeding reasons. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
20.7 x 10cm, 1pp. A cut-out drawing by Ron Costley of a republican army drum such as played by the martyred Viala. The boy's name is incorporated into the diagonal patterning around the sides - the name having letter shapes that match that well. VIVE LA REPUBLIQUIE!
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. c. 1982.
21 x 18cm, 1pp printed letterhead - red and green on white. Finlay created a number of different stationery for Little Sparta and used them (as far as we can tell) indiscriminately for his correspondence. This unused example has across the top "SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE ARTS AGAINST THE ARTS COUNCIL". And at the bottom "When I hear the words 'Arts Council' I reach for my water pistol". Fine.
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Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1983
20.2 x 12.7cm, 96pp and white wrappers and printed cream dust jacket
Artist's book with images of 20 small table top sculptures by Finlay along with quotations that explain the works. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
20 x 8.8cm, 4pp. A folding card with Finlay's poem overprinted on a camouflage pattern in green on light brown. The poem links various body parts and tree parts to others. The first half of the poem link the head to the fingers via other parts, the second the roots to the blossom on the twigs. The final line is "and fruit" which can be allocated both to the hand and the twig (a human can hold fruit). On the back of the card Trump cites both a book on Physiognomy - the habit of judging traits from structures and also Strathclyde Region's Schedule of Poinding Assessments Payable to the Strathclyde Regional Council (1982) in which Finlay would have been included because of his dispute over the Garden temple.
A dryad of course is a mythical spirit that is found within a tree - the metaphor of "tree - human" here is hinted at as being enough to allow judgement about that person, tree or even farm.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
15.2 x 15.4cm , 1pp black on white artist's card. A text by Geoffrey Scott discusses Finlay's metaphors on architectural elements (from Lexical Diversions of Ian Hamilton Finlay) alongside a drawing of a Corinthian capital by Mark Stewart. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
20.5 x 15.5cm , 1pp black on white card. The typographically designed card has two "translations:" which are poetic rather than accurate:
Ferme ornee
armoured farm
and
Arroisir
evening arrow
Hence 'ornate farm' becomes an 'armoured farm' and "watering can" becomes "evening arrow" both of which suggest the militarisation of the grounds. A reaction to Finlay's worries about his enemies coming to Little Sparta and stealing his assets as had happened in March of the same year as publication. VG+.
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