Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1978
8 x 16.6cm, 2pp. A card with two abstract drawings by Jim Downie - one representing the romantic interest of Wordsworth (trees) and the other the Dazzle form of camouflage invented by Edward Wadsworth to help defend ships at sea. Finlay clearly enjoys the slight change in spelling between the names and the resulting hard edge vs organic images. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
22.9 x 28.8cm, blue on white paper in folded 6pp blue folder. Nine warships all of the Flower Class corvette class. The names of the ships were all after flowerrs. The print asks the owner to "fill in the Flowers with colours from the palette below" - the 'colours' are all words such as "fragrant", "open", "erect", "drooping" obviously not actual colours. The idea came from a work from Tom and Laurie Clark of the Moschatel Press (who were friends of Finlay).
This is one of 350 signed and numbered copies on the inside of the folder. Two slight faint marks at bottom of the print else VG in like folder.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, Summer 1973
Two 33 x 20.4cm, 2pp offset lithographic price list (now called a checklist) for the Press stapled top left. Mentions a long list of old and new publications from the Press with prices. Folded at the bottom for past storage else VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
6.6 x 21cm, 2pp. A photographic card with a b/w image of a lily pond and the surface pond scum which has been disturbed by the passage of a swimming bird to leave lines in the algae. Amusingly Finlay credits this painterly image to himself, Carl Heideken (the photographer) and an "unidentified waterhen". The image is meant to appear like an improvised painting or even an avant garde music score (if one squints a bit and uses one's imagination) hence the title. VG+.
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N.p. (Paris): Hazan, 1977
21 x 15cm, 48pp plus card covers. An early monograph on Finlay from a fellow poet - here with many works illustrated in b/w photographs and reproduced drawings and poems. This was the first book in French to be dedicated to Finaly's oeuvre and Edeline is one of the first to try to tease out the various themes in Finlay's work. The subtitlEs which means Gnomics and Gnomonics refers to obscure meanings and sundials. VG+.
INSERTED:
21 x 15cm, 4pp German textual supplement to the book.
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London: Serpentine Gallery, n.d. (1977) 30 x 21cm, 1pp green and b/w offset - the press release for the large scale Finlay solo show at the Serpentine Gallery. Folded for mailing else VG+. JOINT Mailing envelope to Seamus Cooney in Michigan. Neatly opened....
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
16 x 30cm, 1pp black on yellow paper with a design for jam pot covers (the printed paper placed on the outside of jam lids). The design here is of two sundials. The text in latin means Light is the shadow of god. Limitation unknown - this is one of two different designs - the other being on white paper. Murray has this as 7.9 and seems to not know there were two variants.
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London: Serpentine Gallery, 1977
23 x 16cm, 96pp. Original pictorial wrappers . An exhibition catalogue with an "imaginary portrait" of Finlay by Stephan Bann and various illustrations and photographs of works and an insert on cream laid paper "The Wartime Garden" by Finlay illustrated by Ron Costley (which was also published elsewhere). VG+.
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London: Serpentine Gallery, 1977
10.7 x 15cm, 4pp (single folded sheet). The announcement card for a major exhibition of Finlay's work which has the first printing of the cover image on it - which meant that Murray's raisonne has this categorised as an artist's card which we have ignored. The cover shows an abstract in red and blue and references the use of similar patterning on fleet ships during the war (called "dazzle boats") :the joke of course is that this type of camouflage resembles hard-edge abstraction which was in vogue for the 60s and 70s and hence the "dislike" by the U-boats. VG+. very scarce.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
11.5 x 7cm, 4pp. Artist's card with a reproduced drawing of a tree by Bernard Lassus of a tree printed green on white and the text: "TREE-SHELLS. Instructions: Apply ear to Tree-shell. Listen for Lakes." The card can be used to create the same auditory illusion as holding a sea-shell to the ear if cupped close enough - hence bringing the sound of water (lakes) to the ear. This is the third of three cards with the same idea but with different illustrations by different collaborators. VG+
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
26.7 x 11.cm, 2pp. A photographic card with three images taken from Livingston Development Corporation of newly painted housing gable ends (the houses had just been built) and a Finlay public artwork on walls in the Scottish new town (a version of the concrete poem WAVE). The stripes on the wall reminded Finlay of the Dazzle camouflage used during the Battle of the Atlantic: the longest continuous military campaign of World War II which ran from 1939 to 1945. The WAVE work here clearly symbolising the sea and the two zig-zag paintings representing the British boats with their Wadsworth inspired hard edged paintings together is a visual metaphor for the sea battles between the British fleet, their defensive escorts and the German U-boats and battle ships.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
16 x 30cm, 1pp black on white paper with a design for jam pot covers (the printed paper placed on the outside of jam lids). The design here is of two sundials. The text on the first has FERREA VIRGA EST/UMBRATILIS MOTUS (which Finlay slightly takes liberties and translates as "Stainless steel gnomon/porcelain hour") and "STAY-SAIL" on the second. The first describes the light on the imagined sundial and the latter is a reference to the voyage of a ship. Murray has this as 7.9 and seems to not know there were two variants in design and colour of paper.
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