Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
18.9 x 29.8cm, red and black on cream offset lithograph. The text "YOU CANNOT STEP INTO THE SAME RIVER/REVOLUTION TWICE" allows two readings of the statement - first the famous Hereclitian statement comparing the flow of a river that isnever is the same with any point in history . And then FInlay's bold assertion here that that is also true of all revolutions. . VG+.
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n.p.: n.p., n.d. (1993)
60 x 82cm, light blue on white silkscreen. The image of a sundial is joined with text in Greek and English - Saint-Just's most famous dictum "too many laws, too few examples". Like many quotations the meaning out of context can be changed - Saint-Just was referring to deaths in the terror, but a modern take might be that we need better people or better behaviour (Virtue perhaps)? A sundial is a good example - once placed and checked for accuracy, its behaviour is true and unvaried. it is a good example.
One of 300 signed and numbered examples (the signature is in pencil, the numbering in ink.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992
70 x 82cm, full colour offset lithograph with a reproduced painting by Gary Hincks of various weeds and flowers - each named after a prominent woman of the French Revolution. Charlotte Corday, the heroine who murdered the evil Marat in his bath, is shown as a nettle and Marie-Antoinette as a lily. The work is subtitled as "after Anselm Kiefer" who produced a major sculptural installation of the same name with beds made out of lead for each woman.
One of only 250 issued. VG+ condition.
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London: ICA, 1992 70 x 50cm, full colour poster with an image of one sculptural work "LA REVOLUTION EST UN BLOC" and Finlay's name. A print version of this poster was also released without the floating text. VG+. ...
London: ICA, 1992 62 x 50cm, full colour offset print with an image of one sculptural work "LA REVOLUTION EST UN BLOC". A limited edition print released during the ICA exhibition - apparently in a very small number (according to Pia Smilig only 30 copies were released). This print differs from the poster released in that Finlay's name is not printed in large letters top right and the white unprinted strip is not found along the bottom (making the print smaller). Additionally the paper is a little thicker than the poster. One small mark top right else VG+. ...
Liverpool: Tate Gallery, 1991
60 x 42cm, 1pp offset exhibition poster with a reproduction of Finlay's Evening Will Come They Will Sew The Blue Sail on the front in blue on white and gallery details. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991
43 x 41cm, four colour offset lithograph with a reproduction of the painting "The Poor Fisherman" by Puvis De Chavannes - however the mast of the boat has had a revolutionary cockade been added to it. - hence adding a political edge to the image more than the original solely religious intent.
This was a limited edition print issued at the same time as the exhibition at the Talbot Rice Gallery that examined the work in some detail and responses to the work.
There was also an exhibition poster for the show based on the same image and the cover of the exhibition catalogue and invitation to the vernissage.
Fine condition. Limitation unknown but usually 300 - 350 for Finlay prints.
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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
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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Lugo: Exempla, Firenze & Exit, 1990
25.8 x 19cm, 4pp single sheet of folded card in printed envelope. The card opens up to show a photograph by Martyn Greenhalgh of an automatic machine gun which has holes on the barrel to reduce heat. The gun can be seen against sheets of unused musical notation paper - hence the gun with the hole's becomes a violent form of Pan's reed pipes. The image is printed in light green to further emphasise the vegetative aspect of the work.
This is one of 150 signed and numbered copies (on the back of the envelope). VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
28.6 x 34.5cm, black on white lithograph with two texts describing paintings. Folded sheet that opens to 28.6 x 70cm. The first - A guitar, a wine bottle, the bust of a goddess - we believe is a work by Picasso, the second text an updating of the first - A wine bottle, a pair of binoculars, a gun - is possibly a description of a Saint-Just vigilante waiting for agents of Strathclyde Region to arrive (in reality they did not have guns apart from perhaps a water pistol).
The print was issued during the exhibition Nature Morte at the Galerie Philimene Magers in Koln. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
42. 29.7cm, full colour on white paper offset lithograph which parodies a typical cover of the somewhat bizarre Scottish publication - the People's Friend much beloved of grannies and well-wearing middle class knitters. The joke here is that Marat's poisonous journal that condemned indirectly so many people to the guillotine was called "L'ami du peuple". One of Finlay's more amusing works. Slight browning or possible minor foxing due to paper else VG.
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