Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987 29.6 x 21cm, 4pp folded sheet with a proposal for a colour brick wall in green amongst a group of trees. Finlay takes the idea from Theocritus's Idylls "a line of green among the trees" and creates a work of land art in a modern garden in Athens. There is a drawing of the installation by Andrew Townsend. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989.
20.3 x 31.5cm, 4pp folded print - offset lithograph green on silk paper. Finlay proposes a series of five arches of wood around a semi-circular path of bricks. The path passes through a "wilder" part of the garden at which point the arch is entirely "rusticated" but the beginning and end of the path has more "rectilinear" wood as the basis for the arch. Three diacrams/plans/drawings by Robert Johnson.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
21 x 14.8cm 8pp booklet designed and with drawings by Gary Hincks after Claude Lorrain. Finlay claims he saw a resemblance between a "coastal area in the south of England and Latium, the leafly coastal country of the later chapters of Virgil's Aneneid." The former presumably is owned by Thompson for whom the proposal was made. Each page has a water colour and a text by Finlay suggesting tree plaques, stone inscriptions and the installation of a "classical gate". Near fine condition.
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Little Sparta: Committee of Public Safety/Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989 10.8 x 11.2cm, 4pp. A proposal by Finlay that the celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution should be celebrated by A REVOLUTION! Both classed as a "proposal" and also an artist's card. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988,
32.6 x 26cm, black on cream lithograph in folder. A drawing by Gary Hinck of the forest next to a pond after the original by WIlliam Kent and a sketch of one of the tree-plaques. Each tree scupture has either SIlence, Schweigen or Silenzio on it "calling attention to the peaceful surroundings". Sadly this print had a faint diagonal crease on the left else VG in like unprinted folder.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988.
Four 29.3 x 38.2cm, offset lithographic prints in a folder - three of the sheets are drawings by Iain Stewart of the proposed column-bases for trees (essentially sculptured bases in stone with text that are placed at the bottom of a tree trunk.
Here the trees are to be planted in doubles next to each other each with a double column-base. There are three sets proposed - TWO FRIENDS - with the names of LeBas and Saint-Just (both comrades in arms and both part of the French Revolutionary Terror); TWO VICTIMS - Camile (Desmoulins) and Lucile, his wife - both of whom were murdered by Robespierre's fiat; and TWO MARTYRS - the brave Corday (Charlotte) who murdered the evil Marat in his bath - but as Finlay points out both were regarded as Martyrs by their supporters.
The forth print in the set acts as explanatory colophon for the portfolio. To my mind one of the best Finlay proposals.
Slight tear bottom right in the folder which minorly affects each print.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
13.8 × 15cm, outer folder with printed tipped on label and inside a 9pp (printed recto only) accordion folded sheet with drawings by Hincks of the already existing memorial in Uberwasser cemetery in Munster for Annetee von Droste-Hulshoff (1797 - 1848), a 19th-century German writer and composer. This is second of two books relating to a proposal for memorial for the writer created by Finlay. Unusually for him both proposals both might be regarded as artist's books in this format but we have placed them in the same section that the WIld Hawthorn Press used for their listings. VG
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
four gr
13.8 × 15cm, outer folder with printed tipped on label and inside a 9pp (printed recto only) accordion folded sheet with drawings of four gravestones and two plans of the installation for a memorial garden for Annetee von Droste-Hulshoff (1797 - 1848), a 19th-century German writer and composer. The drawings were by Gary Hincks. This is one of two booklets relating to the proposals for a memorial. Unusually for Finlay's proposals both publications might be regarded as artist's books in this format but we have placed them in the same section that the Wild Hawthorn Press used for their listings. VG.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
10.2 × 47. 5cm, 4pp single sheet of paper in in unprinted paper folder. The sheet when opened is 10.2 × 95cm. B/w offset lithograph with a proposal for a path entirely made of bricks with the word "Virgil" on them, on the left are texts - the first is a quotation which says "With only slight exaggeration one / might say that Virgil 'discovered' the evening...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
58.0 x 39.5cm, offset lithograph print in original printed folder. The putative monument's elevation and plan by Gary Hincks is printed one above the other.
Finlay's proposal for the work included five straight stemmed silver birch trees planted amongst cobbles and a "tree-column base" at the bottom of the middle tree: tree-column bases were a sculptural innovation by Finlay where the tree could continue to grow (the base was a semi-circle allowing expansion to the back) but the base of the tree would have a permanent stone marker. The base in this proposal was planned to have the letter's R.L.S. - the capitals that Robert Louise Stephenson was often known by.
Finlay regarded the use of the birches symboling of Stephenson's interest in the Scottish landscape and the neo-classical base as a reference to RLS's childhood association with Edinburgh's New Town. The installation was eventually installed in Princes Street Gardens but the birches didn't flourish and had to be later replaced slightly incorrectly.
One of 200 copies released - VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
27 × 27cm, black and cream offset lithograph on thick paper in original printed paper folder.
Finlay's proposal for a monument to the Scottish writer was a plaque on rough stone to be set amongst a grove of birch trees. The plaque was to have a "one word poem" on it - "A MAN OF LETTERS. / R.L.S./1850 - 1894". The obvious wit being the use of the capital letters RLS which Stevenson was often referred to by reflected by the term "man of letters" which means someone involved in the literary world.
Fine in like folder.
Unlike some of Finlay's proposals this work was installed in 1989 in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens but the original birch trees died and were replaced.
The Public Monuments and Sculpture Association Edinburgh Sculpture Project notes: "Unfortunately, the original birches did not thrive, and were replaced a few months later so that the tree does not line up with the base as Finlay intended. Here, the classical tradition of architecture is returned to its roots in the tree." Still it is one of the very best of Finlay's public art works (unlike the awful fruit baskets at Hunter's Square at the Tron Church only a mile away)
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990 35x 27.7cm, 1pp b/w broadside. Folded twice as issued. A proposal for a public work at the famous Furka Pass in Switzerland - Finlay suggests the Swiss artist Hodler's signature be inscribed on a stone as if the artist is "signing" the landscape that he so often pictured in his work. The broadside reprints a text by Wouter Weijers and three small drawings by Kathleen Lindsley. One of only 200 copies published, this is in VG+....