IAN HAMILTON FINLAY

ARTIST’S POSTCARDS

FOR MY BIRTHDAY. 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
11 x 11cm, 4pp, Artist's card printed black on white with a drawing of a boat and inside a poem by Finlay:

FOR MY
BIRTHDAY

I
want a

Kit
Wood

kit

On the surface this is a simple birthday request for a model boat kit made of wood however the boat drawing is of PZ134 - a wooden fishing boat called the Ocean Pride which was originally built in 1919. It was being restored by various enthusiasts - hence the real boat is a kit being made by hobbyists as well. VG+.

UNTITLED. UNFOLDER. CHRISTMAS 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
Three nested sheets, each 15 x 11cm (closed size), with texts on the folds and an illustration by Gary Hincks of a Zulu Skiff in the centre sheet. The work can be slowly opened to read in order:

UNTITLED UNFOLDER

bow curves bow cleaves

sail powers sail steadies

rudder steers stern stitches

TT 117 zulu skiff

Part of the :"Echoes series" this work is a variation on another poet's work - here Ian Stephen. The card is noted as being Christmas 1995 but also Easter 1996. VG+.

Gary Hincks

LONGING. 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
12.7 x 8.6cm, 4pp, Artist's card printed black on blue with a poem by Finlay called LONGING.

to see
to see if it were
if it were but the smoke
the smoke going up
going up from the houses
the houses
of rocky
Ithaca

The poem describes the longing and homesickness of Ulysses for his home. VG+.

THE DEEP-RED BROWN. 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
7.2 x 8cm, 4pp. Artist's card printed red on light yellow with an abstract drawing by Gary Hincks on the front that looks like a close up of sackcloth .
Internally there is a translation of two lines from a fragment from Archilochus the Greek poet:
The deep red-brown
of rain-wet sailcloth

The poem is reflected in the drawing. VG+.

UNTITLED (PART OF A PLANK), 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on 9.5 x 44cm opened out, 8pp concertina folded, white paper with the four panels of texts in outline font:

PART OF A PLANK
OVER
PART OF A PLANK

EDGE TO EDGE
PLANK TO A PLANK

END TO END
ABUTTING

STEM TO STERN

The panels firstly describe three methods of ship building where different ways of laying the wood is used. The final panel encompasses the entire boat from front to back.
One is reminded, although the comparison is probably just coincidence, of Lawrence Weiner's conceptual art works where all physical options of interrelations between things are listed to create conceptual sculptures. VG+.

UNTITLED. SOME FLAKES OF SNOW. 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
14.4 x 15.4cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on 14 x 45cm (opened out) white paper with the text in outline font:

SOME FLAKES OF SNOW STIRRED
BY THE WING OF A PIGEON

The poem is a winter scene. The white tips and flecks of a pigeon's wings are compared with the falling flakes of snow. VG+>

UNTITLED (LETTERS AND NUMBERS). 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on inner brown paper with a text printed in reverse. Read the correct way round it would read:

LETTERS AND NUMBERS

SEEN IN REVERSE

THROUGH A SAIL

The text directly references its own format - the reader is forced to read "through" the "brown sail". VG+.

UNTITLED (A FRAYED EDG) sic. 1995.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995 10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped in inner 4pp sheet. A text printed in a outline font reads:

A FRAYED EDG
A WORN EDG
A FAINT EDG
A WARPED EDG

The E in each word EDGE is missing to create the visual counterpart of the text. VG+.

VILLAGE. HOMAGE TO GABRIELE MUNTER. 1996.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
11 x 11 cm, 4pp black on white folding card. The poem internally reads:

VILLAGE

red houses.
yellow houses
blue houses
greenhouses

Gabriele Münter was a female German expressionist painter from the turn of the 20th century. Her work often showed rural landscapes including villages with the colours being bright (like Fauvism). Finlay's poem listing these bright buildings ends humorously with the pun of "greenhouses". VG+.

(CLASSICAL) LANDSCAPE. 1996.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 2000
7 x 12.6cm, 4pp artist's card with a landscape drawing by Kathleen Lindsley. Internally there is a definition work by Finlay:

(Classical) landscape, n. a stand of concepts.

Finlay's definition is aware of the long traditions and ideas behind both landscape gardening and the painting of such scenes. VG+.

Kathleen Lindsley

HER HANDWRITING: SPRING WATER. A VALENTINE. 1996.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
9 x 11 cm, 4pp black on white folding card. The poem internally reads:

Her handwriting spring water.
(Her words, river-washes pebbles).

The flowing hand-writing is compared with the importance of the lover's words. VG+.

1943. 1996.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
8.4 x 12.6cm, 4pp black on white folding card with the drawing by Gary Hincks of a second world war bomber with a woman as "nose art". The poem internally reads:

1943

Lovely ladies lolling in lingerie
on the noses of B17's. (sic)

The alliterative first line brings to mind real seductresses and the second clearly places the reality of the second world war habit of having female images painted on the front of the bomber planes. VG+.

Gary Hincks