Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1981
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp announcement card for a solo show of small stone works by Finlay.and also the launch of the book of the same name. One work ZENO-IS HERE is reproduced on the front.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
13.8 x 90cm, 1pp. Gardner's drawing of the titular pillar box (a defensive position made usually of concrete in the second world war) suggests such a structure is needed as a posting box for the letters sent by Finlay and others during the Little Sparta War and other disputes.
On the reverse, there is a handwritten note from Sue Finlay to Harry Warschauer thanking him for putting her in touch with "NK" at Duck Soup, and for his gifts. She mentions that she (they?) are very busy due to changing an exhibition but also because of the "devastated garden'. A stamped and mailed copy but VG+.
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Little Sparta: s.p. (Finlay), 3 March 1981
30 x 21cm, vintage spirit duplicate of a reply to Finlay from the Strathclyde Consumer Protection department: Finlay had asked the department to take up a complaint against the Region's own Financial Collection Agencies. The department indicates that they do not regard the "Wild Hawthorn Press" as an individual and therefore refuse to act on Finlay's complaint.
The xerox is a poor copy but legible.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
3.6 x 11.8cm, 1pp. A drawing by Gary Hincks after Flaxman's drawing/print "Apollo and Diana discharging their arrows" from 1792 is updated where the landscape is now of a war time harbour for U-boats and also part of Albert Speer's "Atlantic Wall". Finlay refers to the U-boats as "classical" in his text and there is thus both a literary and a visual reference to The Odyssey. Moreover, the two gods are referred to as "an Allied air raid is in progress" (the original Pope quotation has "They Bend the Silver Bow with Tender Skill and Void of Pain the Silent Arrows Kill"). The story of how the children of Niobe were killed by APollo and Diana because of her fertility-shaming of their mother for only having two offspring is turned into a story of revenge against the Nazis. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
20.3 × 16.5cm, black on lilac printed outer folder with title content of a single 20.3 × 16.5cm offset lithograph printed black on blue laid paper with the word "SYMBOLISME".
One of Finlay's innovative colour paper prints (in fact the third such published) where the medium utilised is as important as the printed words, this is a visual poem in some sense that the paper colour of the inner sheet is associated with the out of fashion painterly movement as well as the sea. Moreover - Finlay emphasises a parallel between the memorial graves of dead sailors that have never been found and the death of symbolism which often used death and water as major themes.
Later a public work based on this metaphor was built in the the medieval garden of the Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame.
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n.p. : Parret Press, 1981
9 x 10.5cm, 28pp plus card covers. One of Finlay's most rare books this is a book of "definitions" where a common word is given (usually a classical) new definition. For example,:
HARE, n. a creature second in swiftness to the tortoise.
One of only 75 copies each of which is signed by Finlay published at Christmas 1981 - this example has sadly had some water damage in the past which can be seen on the outside and inside of the cover and along the inner spine although the texts and inner pages are unaffected.
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Dunsyre, Lanark: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1980)
6 x9.2cm, 8pp plus card wrappers and printed dust jacket. The four printed pages has one word each:
5. Baroque
6. Barque
7. Bark
8. Baroque
and there is a reference to W. Lee Rensselaer's Names on Trees on the inner cover. That book is a literary and artistic analysis of the story of Angelica and Medoro in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. One aspect of Angelica's love for Medoro is that she carved the lovers' names on trees. Hence once can read the book as a visual poem of boats (Barque/Bark) and woods (Bark/Baroque) with the reference to baroque also referring to the art style of the 17th century. VG+
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Dunsyre, Lanark: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1980)
13.6 x 8cm, 4pp plus blue wrappers. Artist's book where Finlay has only two different paper types bound together in the wrappers - one is blue and the other is white. There is a reference to Henty Vaughan's "The Timber. Silex Scintillans" on the back fold.
Vaughan was a metaphysical poet of the 17th century and Silex Scintillans published in 1650 was a major religious text which was published in two volumes with a significant gap in time between them (possibly due to illness) . The Two Billows of the title refers to the two volumes and the change in colour of the two pages reflects the differences in the two books. A visual poem with a literary and religious meaning although the boat vignette on the cover may suggest the more literal meaning of two billows - two pushes of air helping the vessel steer a true course. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1980
60 x 82cm, black on white offset lithograph with two drawings by Gary Hincks. The first cruiser is shown in elevation, the second also but with camouflage nettings over the bows. The allusion is to classical portraits of the human form - unclothed and clothed.
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Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1980
21 x 15cm, 20pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket. An early monograph and exhibition catalogue discussing one aspect of Finlay's work. Illustrated in b/w throughout. as well as reprinting excerpts from the New Arcadian Dictionary and catalogue of works in the exhibition. VG+.
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Glasgow: Collins Exhibition Hall, 1980
23 x 12cm, 30pp. Original wrappers with printed dust jacket . One centre page fold out. An exhibition catalogue with an introductory text by Stephan Bann and various illustrations including a garden plan by Albert Speer (who Bann and Finlay had been corresponding with and which was to cause trouble later) and a musical note by Wilma Patterson plus one fold out sheet showing various "plaques" by Finlay in the landscapes. At the back of the catalogue there is a page work by Finlay - white laid paper sheets are labelled MOSS in small type at the bottom then a dull green laid paer sheet has the text "refinements of words" on it. VG+.
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Little Sparta; Wild Hawthorn Press, 1980.
14.3 x 8.5cm, c.32pp plus original wrappers. Artist's book with a number of descriptive poems by Finlay which end with a pointing finger as if the artist expects the scene to be drawn by the reader on a blank facing page.
"A statue of Eve reaching up to pick an apple, placed under an apple tree."
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