TWO EPUCUREAN POEMS AND AN EPICUREAN PARADOX. 1981.

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1981)
17.8 x 13.9cm, light brown outer folder content of three 1pp sheets each with a concrete poem on them. The first two are on blue card and are presumably the two epicurian poems - the first has lines which represents a wafer surrounded by water (a wafer being a dry slice of something may be seen as land and the water as sea hence the whole an island), the second shows descending lines of water and one representing a bird swooping vertically down. These works remind one of a modern typographic equivalent of Apollinaire's calligrammes.
The final work is on orange paper (Finlay often used these colour combinations)and shows a triangle and a circle - the first is meant to be the scent of oranges, the second the scent of pears. The citrus of oranges is sharp like the corners of the triangle. This latter poem is meant to be a paradox and that is because of the shapes - the "Sharp" orange is not round while the pair is not a triangle which broadly is the shape of a pair..
Epicurean philosophy promoted simplicity, enjoyment and calmness as the way to a better life. In modern times the word is more associated with someone who enjoys food. Finlay seems to be happy with the simple life.
These works are usually placed in the artist's book section of Finlay's raisonne but there is a strong case for them to be small prints. But for now we have retained them in the former category. VG+ in like folder.

THE ANAXIMANDER FRAGMENT. 1981.

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1981)
12 x 12cm, 40pp plus card wrappers and printed photo-pictorial dust jacket.
Artist's book where Finlay has placed translations of the Anaximander Fragment (the earliest known extant philosophical thesis) opposite images of a broken classical column and its base found in the extended grounds of Little Sparta (then Stoneypath). The column was of course deliberately partly destroyed as the original artwork. The images, in b/w , were by Harvey Dwight.
The philosophers cited here are Diels, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jaeger, Weil, Kahn, Kirk, Hussey, Burnet, Lloyd-Jones and Jaspers.
The fragment from Anaximander (600 BC) is a statement about how life has to make way for death out of necessity and each translation has subtle different meanings. Of course, the fact that only a tiny amount of the thoughts of Anaximander has survived into the present day is a mirror of the ruined (by intent) column.
The consideration of man's death is a major theme running through much of Finlay's output - and this falls heavily in the middle of his fascination of momento mori and similar works. VG+ example of a very scarce book.

LITTLE SERMON SERIES. ORGY OF THE CHERRIES. 1982.

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
7.5 x 9.5cm, 12pp plus card wrappers and printed pink dust jacket.
Artist's book with two drawings by Ian Gardner - one entitled The Orgy of The Cherries - where the stalks and stones are scattered and L'Idylle de Cerises where the cherries are uneaten and the stalks still attached. The L'Idylle de Cerises is a reference from a chapter heading from Rousseau's Les Confessions. Cherries are associated with sexual pleasure and Rousseau mentions them in a context of mild desire. The book (printed on pink to reflect the colour of the fruit) shows the detritus of cherry eating - with all the stones scattered - as a metaphor for an orgy when all the participants are exhausted and strewn across the bed. VG+.

LITTLE SERMONS SERIES (VOLUME MAKE BEAUTY). 1982.

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
7.5 x 9.5cm, 12pp plus card wrappers and printed white dust jacket.
Artist's book with a drawing of a circle, a classical column and a cube by Ian Gardner. The text is "Volume makes beauty/ and the most beautiful forms" with the latter on the page with the drawings "are the sphere, the cylinder, the cube." a quote from Vitulio from the 12th century. (One is reminded of Paul Cezanne's similar statement).
Finlay has replaced the cylinder with a classical column - changing Vitulio's statement into a promotion of neo-classicism. VG+

3 DEVELOPMENTS. 1982.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
9.9 x 11.1cm, 28pp plus card wrappers and printed white dust jacket.
Artist's book with three sections - the first shows a unit (a dot), a line (two dots) and a plane (three dots). The second is Unit, line panzer (altering the dots into representing military units) and then, finally, unit, line, plane (the last page has two crosses and a dot instead of three dots. The simplest of changes creates significant differences in meaning. VG+

MIDWAY 3. 1982.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
13 x 25.2cm, 8pp plus card wrappers and printed white dust jacket.
Artist's book with two drawings of the Japanese planes trying to return to their aircraft carrier which is on fire as a result most had to crash into the seas and the pilots drown. The quotation is "The last honey by the water that no hive can find." from Austin Clarke's The Cattledrive in Connaught" 1925. The Clarke quotation has its flaws - it is the bee that seeks the pollen not the hive so the line is rather reversed but Finlay ignores that (as he does in other publications such as the Black Sparrow Press, publication also of 1982 called "Honey by the water." VG+.

THE MAILED PINKIE. 1982.

Alsbach: Verlaggalerie Leaman, 1982
11.5 x 11.2cm, 20pp plus oversize wrappers. Artist's book containing five drawings by Gary Hincks and poems by Finlay.

IMPROVISATIONS

leaf-boat
cottonreel-tank

cottonreel-boat
leaf-tank

which is illustrated with drawings of bobbins used in toy model making.
One of 500 copies. VG+.

ANTICIPATIONS. 1982.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1982)
11.4 x 10.4cm,12pp and printed wrappers.
Artist's book with two quotations from Cholmeley and Burnet from Greek texts - the first is "a line of green among the trees" from Theocritis which Finlay claims is "Land Art in Theocritis" and the second from Empedokles referencing the idylls of Aphrodite as "A Fete Galante in Empedokles". The cover of the book is a b/w reproduction of an unidentified Watteau painting (who painted The Departure to Cytheria). The book ends with a quotation from Sol Lewitt: "One usually understands the art of the past by applying the conventions of the present - this mis-understanding the art of the past." Finlay had created many "homage" works where he celebrated the essence of many artists - this is the reverse, the modern celebrating the past but by deliberate misunderstanding. VG+>

THE ERRATA OF OVID. 1983.

Dunsyre/Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, (1983)
7.8 x 8.2cm outer folder content of eight 7.8 x 8.2cmm 1pp cards. Each of seven cards (the eighth is a colophon) suggests single word changes to lines from Ovid's Metamorphoses to alter the meaning of the line and a drawing by Gary Hincks. As often Finlay enjoys the effects of minimal changes to cause maximum effect. Arguably a colleciton of artist's postcards but the cards could not stand alone so we agree this is categorised as an artist's book. VG+

TALISMANS AND SIGNIFIERS. 1983.

Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1983
20.2 x 12.7cm, 96pp and white wrappers and printed cream dust jacket
Artist's book with images of 20 small table top sculptures by Finlay along with quotations that explain the works. VG+.

AGGIE WESTON’S NO 19. PERSIFLAGE. 1983.

Belper: Aggie Weston's, 1983
25 x 20cm, 16pp plus card covers. Single number of Stuart Mill's publication which is in fact a Finlay artist's book with drawings by Rod Gathercole. Each page has a different abstract drawing of undergrowth and epigrams below - such as:
Camouflage proverb: If the bush fits, wear it. VG+

LIBERTY, TERROR & VIRTUE. NEW ARCADIANS’ JOURNAL NO. 15. 1984. ONE OF 100 NUMBERED COPIES.

Southampton: Southampton Art Gallery, 1984
21 x 14.8cm, 48pp plus printed wrappers with tipped on reproduced drawing. Offically an exhibition catalogue for a touring show and also a single number of the poetry and literature review New Arcadians - here dedicated to Finlay who wrote the text. The catalogue is illustrated throughout by Andrew Griffiths. The works all relate to the Little Sparta War as well as proposed artworks that are grounded in the Nazi iconography (as Finlay points out elsewhere these works do not support fascism - the symbolism of the Third Reich is powerful and can be detourned for good reasons by artists).
This is really an artist's book by Finlay and we are cataloguing it as such. One of 1000 hand-numbered copies. . VG+.

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