IAN HAMILTON FINLAY

ARTIST’S POSTCARDS

WITHIN THE SYSTEM. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
15.2 x 13cm, 1pp black on white artist's card with a drawing by Mark Stewart. The full title of of the card is "WITHIN THE SYSTEM OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE THE LEAST PART OF AN ELEVATION HAS THE ABILITY TO MAKE THE WHOLE KNOWN" a quotation from Quatremere de Quncy. The drawin is of the Dovecot at Littel Sparta with a gun barrel pushing out of double doors that seem to be made out of stacked hay bales creating a tank of sorts out of the building. The low lying gun barrel certainly could make the whole known if fired.
There is another card DOVECOTE from 1983 which shows the whole of the building form a distance with the barrel hard to see. VG+.

Mark Stewart

A VIEW ON THE HEDGEHOG GARDEN: LITTLE SPARTA IN WARTIME. 1983

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
17.8 x 12.8 cm , 2pp black on white artist's card with a photograph of Little Sparta by Norman Lockhart. In the reverse is a definition work: "CAMOUFLAGE, n. a presentation, a concealment".
The photographic image of the buildings are obscured (camouflaged) by foliage hanging from the trees in closeup. This is a common theme in Finlay how the placement of an object or a weapon in vegetation is a distant and subtle symbol of life being reminded of the ever potential of death. VG+.

Norman Lockhart

WILDFLOWER. A MEAN TERM BETWEEN REVOLUTION AND VIRTUE. UNCUT EXAMPLE. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
21 x 30cm, 1pp. An uncut example of a folding card with Finlay's definition of a Wildflower as a mean term. This card was meant to be folded with a pressed wildflower (added by the owner) inside. VG+.

TREE COLUMN-BASE “SAINT-JUST”. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
12.4 x 15.2cm, 1pp. A drawing of an installation of one of Finlay's Tree Column-Base dedicated to the French revolutionary Saint-Just in the garden of Little Sparta. Finlay notes that the tree is a Silver Birch (which has a noble and straight growing trunk) and that the plants around the base are strawberries (a passionate fruit one might argue due to colour and flavour). The base was an unturned capital of a Doric pilaster. Together this represents the character of the young incorruptible. The drawing was by Andrew Townsend. VG+.

Andrew Townsend

THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY. VIALA. HOMMAGE A DAVID. 1983?

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.(1983?) 8.4 x 7cm, 8pp single folding card printed on one side only in blue and red on white. The first panel lists the publishing details, the second shows the ship that has reef knots that look like the decorations on the side of the drums of the revolutionary army - the boat is called The Littel Drummer Boy and the panel remembers Bara the martyr, the third panel has the name Viala with a tricolour ribbon - here memorialising the death of the young martyr Joseph Agricol Viala who tried to demolish a bridge while under attack and died calling for Liberty and finally, the text "Hommage A David" who was a third martyr to the Terrorists murdered in his bath. A card in honour of three Republican deaths. This example is signed "To Janet (Boulton) yours Gary (Hincks)" in blue and red crayon. VG+.

A PLACEMENT. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
11.6 x 7.6cm , 10pp (single folded sheet printed on one side only) brown on white artist's card with two photographs by Andrew Griffiths of a tree that had recently been planted and another a fully grown - both have tree-column sculptures at their bases. The poem in the middle section reads:
A PLACEMENT
obeisance
and an excerpt from Finlay's "Detached Sentences on Gardening" which clarifies the idea that some items in a garden are like those of societies - some need to be fixed (in the sense of solidified) so that others can be placed (strategic decision-making).
The final section notes the Tree Column-Bases to be found in Little Sparta - one "Lycurge" and the other Saint-Just. The former was a Greek law-maker and the latter the stern deliverer of laws from the French Revolution. Finlay differentiates between the two by suggesting the Greek was more stable and civil while the latter more chaotic and dangerous. VG+.

Andrew Griffiths

JOIN THE SAINT-JUST VIGILANTES. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
19.3 x 6.6cm, 1pp, red on white card. The illustration shows a series of drawings of French revolutionary style-drums with the text "Join the Saint-Just Vigilantes". The card is a rallying call for support much like a drum-roll might be. VG+.

JOIN THE SAINT-JUST VIGILANTES AND BE A COUNTER-COMPOSITION. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
16.4 x 12.6cm, 1pp, black on white card. The illustration is a parody of a work by Theo van Doesburg, who was a leading figure in the De Stijl abstract group. The text "Join the Saint-Just Vigilantes and be a counter-composition" references a series of paintings by the artist where the shapes are placed on the diagonal. The inference being that the Saint-Just Vigilantes are awkward and difficult, not on the square. VG+.

PINK MELON JOY AND MORE. A PLAY. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
18 x 13.6cm, 1pp. The "play" consists of extracts from letters sent to Finlay from Strathclyde Region and the Scottish Arts Council interspersed with quotations from Gertrude Stein. Stein's texts (due to Finlay's clever selection) mock the official texts that proceed each. An ironic and somewhat biting attack on Finlay's enemies which is at the same time comic. VG+

THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY. VIALA. HOMMAGE A DAVID. 1983? SIGNED & DEDICATED BY GARY HINCKS.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.(1983?)
8.4 x 7cm, 8pp single folding card printed on one side only in blue and red on white. The first panel lists the publishing details, the second shows the ship that has reef knots that look like the decorations on the side of the drums of the revolutionary army - the boat is called The Littel Drummer Boy and the panel remembers Bara the martyr, the third panel has the name Viala with a tricolour ribbon - here memorialising the death of the young martyr Joseph Agricol Viala who tried to demolish a bridge while under attack and died calling for Liberty and finally, the text "Hommage A David" who was a third martyr to the Terrorists murdered in his bath. A card in honour of three Republican deaths.
This example is signed "To Janet (Boulton) yours Gary (Hincks)" in blue and red crayon. VG+.

Gary Hincks

AGAINST THE HEBERTISTS AND THE DANTONISTS. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
17.8 x 132.8cm, 1pp. The card has a descending text based on a form of "all X lie":

all governments lie
all generals lie
all Grecians lie
all gypsies lie
all gymnosphists lie
all grocers lie
all Graces lie

Finlay wants the repeated phrases to hint at the effect of cynicism on order - obviously some of the lines are ridiculous - and that, in some sense, that distrust of oppositional forces (such as the Hebertists who were determined to wipe out Christianity during the French revolution and the Dantonists who were more willing to accept the church as a force in the land - both were executed in turn by Robespierre who himself was not anti-clerical or at least not anti-theist) is ultimately corrupt. VG+.

HEROIC ANAGRAMS: SAINT JUST. 1983.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
22.5 x 9.5cm, 4pp, black on grey thin card with a drawing by Alexander Stoddart of a bust of Saint-Just with the name of the revolutionary altered to read "Satin Juts" - an anagram of the name. VG+.

Alexander Stoddart