27 May

Posted at 09:43h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
63.2 x 40.5cm, full colour offset lithograph with seven "cut-outs" to form seed packets. Each packet has the name of one of the guillotined members of Robespierre's Committee for Public Safety who were deposed during the Thermadorian Reaction. The month when that happened was designated as "Arrisoir" in the revolutionary calendar - and the symbol of that month, the watering can is on each packet. Of course, seeds may be regarded as parts of plants that have been separated from the main body - a little like a head in a basket. VG+

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03 Feb

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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28 Oct

Posted at 08:58h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
42 x 29.5cm, red on white satin paper offset lithograph with a text in French after Saint-Just and his comrade in arms Lebas who had been sent to Stranbourg in 1794 by Robesprierre to end local disputes in the city that had come to violence. This was part of a general move on the Committe for Public Safety to rein in the actions of the many Representatives on Mission who had overstepped their perceived powers and gain central control of the country. The proclamation (on 25 Brumaire, 1794) tells citizens of Strasbourg to stop acting like Germans as their hearts are French. By accounts Saint-Just and Labas took the side of the city merchants over that of agitators from outside (presumably regarded as more "German") and capturing the latter's leader Euloge Schneider sent him back to Paris to meet the guillotine (again: as they had publicly displayed him tied up in front of a the local version for a day) but now for the last time .Brumaire was the second month of the revolutionary calendar and its symbol was fog. Ultimately the Coup of 18 Brumaire brought General Napoleon Bonaparte to power as First Consul of France and in the view of most historians ended the French Revolution.
There were two colour variants of this print - this is the blue one, the red is also in this collection.

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28 Oct

Posted at 08:37h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
42 x 29.5cm, red on white satin paper offset lithograph with a text in French after Saint-Just and his comrade in arms Lebas who had been sent to Stranbourg in 1794 by Robesprierre to end local disputes in the city that had come to violence. This was part of a general move on the Committe for Public Safety to rein in the actions of the many Representatives on Mission who had overstepped their perceived powers and gain central control of the country. The proclamation (on 25 Brumaire, 1794) tells citizens of Strasbourg to stop acting like Germans as their hearts are French. By accounts Saint-Just and Labas took the side of the city merchants over that of agitators from outside (presumably regarded as more "German") and capturing the latter's leader Euloge Schneider sent him back to Paris to meet the guillotine (again: as they had publicly displayed him tied up in front of a the local version for a day) but now for the last time .Brumaire was the second month of the revolutionary calendar and its symbol was fog. Ultimately the Coup of 18 Brumaire brought General Napoleon Bonaparte to power as First Consul of France and in the view of most historians ended the French Revolution.
There were two colour variants of this print - this is the red one, the blue is also in this collection.

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27 Aug

Posted at 22:55h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
48.5 x 32.5cm, green on cream paper offset lithograph with two drawings by Hincks one above each other. The first is after a landscape Johan Christian Reinhart etched in Rome in 1811. The second is with Finlay's addition of the word "W AVE" on the stone opening for the spring. In the Reinhart original the word in Greek `"XAIPE " means Hail or Farewell and Finlay notes that as being in relation to death. The AVE part of Finlay's text is the Latin equivalent to XAIPE but with the addition of the W (a little distance from the rest of the lettering) then the meaning is altered to that of water.
This was one of only 250 such prints made. In VG condition in like folder.

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23 Apr

Posted at 20:10h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
42 × 32.1cm, red and black silkscreen on cream paper. A diagram that can be cut out and formed into a Corinthian capital for a column (drawn by Nicholas Stone). On the diagram there is a definition: "CAPITAL n. a republican crown."
A republic is a state without a king - hence it would not have a crown. The Corinthian capitals (also known as orders) is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture and hence regarded as the most advanced - and it was also the most ornate (somewhat like a bejewelled crown). There is a tension in this work by Finlay that is never quite resolved. Perhaps the other meanings of capital are also important here - as the uppercase beginning letter of a sentence and/or the city in which the government (perhaps a republican governement) is based. Fine condition.

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20 Feb

Posted at 08:13h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
27.9 x 18.4cm, red and black offset lithograph which lists the names of those on the governing body of the Scottish Arts Council and with a sythe calling on the body to be "reaped" and people to join the Saint-Just Vigilantes. Finlay felt the SAC had not supported his fight with Strathclyde Region. Arts bodies who attempt to oversee art are always a stupid idea - and today nothing much has changed with the replacement of the SAC with Creative Scotland.

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30 Jul

Posted at 08:29h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
14.2 x 15cm, red on white folding offset lithograph. There are 16 panels ten of each with a three word poem - for example

beast
brute

or

lute
lyre
luger

The trios of words are all alliterative within a panel beginning with the same letter. They all also end with a weapon or a reference to fascism. The "chant" is encouraged to be repeated when one gets to the end.
The "Region" here is Strathclyde Region and this is another of Finlay's acidic attacks on their bureaucracy.VG+ condition.
This is categorised as a print by both Murray and the Wild Hawthorn Press but it really is a folding card but for ease we have left it here in the prints section of this online collection.

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24 Jun

Posted at 10:52h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (c. 1983)
38.5 x 50.5cm, red on white offset lithograph. The quotation "LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH'ENTRATE!" is from Dante's Inferno and is the famous line over the entry to hell: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter!". As such it is a warning - and here also Finlay has appropriated it as a threat to Strathclyde Region's lackies and even Sheriff Officers during the Little Sparta War.
One of a number of campaigning placards reproduced as poster prints. The warning is intensified by the use of a bright red. We cannot quite date this work but it is likely to be c. 1983.

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11 Mar

Posted at 20:00h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996)
A portfolio of three 25 x 20cm, 4pp offset lithographs - the paper colour of each being important to the meaning of the work.

The first sheet opens to read "Watteau's clown" and is on beige paper.

The second sheet opens to read "Picasso's acrobats" and is on light blue paper.

The third sheet opens to read "The wind shadow cast by this blue sail" and is on dark blue paper.

The three reference paintings and the dominant colour of the pallet....

29 Jan

Posted at 20:39h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
22.2 x 20cm, full colour offset lithograph showing what purports to be a secret cachet between the members of the Saint)Just Vigilantes (the support group who helped Finlay resist the attempts by Strathclyde Region to seize artworks by Finlay in lieu of what they claimed was unpaid rates for the Temple at Little Sparta). The supposed message cannot be seen as the paper itself has a camouflage pattern. (In this joke Finlay preempts a current common internet meme that camouflage makes things invisible, but we digress.) A very good + example which does not have any lemon juice or any other secret message added to it as far as we know.

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