Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
10.5 x 19.1cm, 2pp card with a reproduced painting by Janet Boulton of a long thorn branch. The title of the work is the name of a type of French fishing boat that strung long trails of hooks after them as a means of increasing the take of the trip, VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
10.5 x 9.5cm, 4pp card with a detail of a painting by Steer and internally a poem by Finlay:
W. Steer at Walberswick
Tucking into
knickers
imperishable
petticoat
froth
The reference painting here is Philip Wilson Steer's "The Beach at Walberswick". The British impressionist often concentrated on the people on the beach rather than the landscape per se as with other painters in that movement. Finlay notes the dresses of the women on the beach and compares their petticoat frills to the foam found at the sea edge. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
14.8 x 10cm, single folded sheet to create a 4pp card with a drawing by Gary Hincks of a model boat, Inside Finlay describes a model sailboat on chair, propped amongst cushions with a tape-machine playing the sound of wind, rain and ocean waves. The "event" is a conceptual sailing. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
8.4 x 9cm, single folded card printed black on brown with the internal text : "FOLDING THE LAST SAIL". The card colour is reminiscent of certain sails that take on their colour from the oils that are used to keep them flexible. The act of folding a sail to store it away or sometimes to wrap a dead body in it is reflected in the folding of the card. This work is after an earlier work by Thomas A. Clark and Laurie Clark. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
17.5 x 20.4cm, 4pp, card printed black on cream with the internal text with a landscape linocut by Jo Hincks.
Internally there is a text:
K S-R
Everything has been turned into wood and shaped with an axe till it roughly resembles itself. Wooden roads, wooden colours, wooden suns, wooden pine-needles. A wooden field with wooden stoocks like sails on a sea.
K. S-R. is Karl Schmidt-Rottluff the German expressionist who formed the Die Brücke group. Late in his life he made almost exclusively landscape paintings that reflected his angular style (which looks much like the unsubtle edges of woodcuts). VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
11.5 x 12.8cm, 4pp card with a drawing of a Zulu boat by Gary Hincks. The sails of the ship are black (reflecting the name of the type of boat). Internally Finlay has two texts:
ZULU
Feathers
of cloud
at the masthead
and
Feathers
of foam
at the waist.
The top and bottom of the moving ship show similar features. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
5.2 x 18.6cm, 4pp, card printed which houses a 5.2 x 18.6cm, 1pp card with tipped on embroidered name tag (in red and white).
The tag reads: "TOM, DICK OR HARRY".
The card notes the boat names of drifters which being boys names are indeed "characteristic" as well as typical of the time. The phrase "Tom, Dick or Harry" is from an idiom - any Tom, Dick, or Harry", meaning anyone thus making the naming convention universal. This card is almost an object multiple but we have decided to retain it in this catalogue as an artist's card. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
23.7 x 23.2cm, 4pp. Folding card (one of the largest published by Finlay) with a drawing by Gary Hinks of falling leaves. The pattern of the leaves is an exact placement of the letters in the original Apollinaire Calligramme Il Pleut from 1918 where the words are allowed to fall like rain. This "variation" on the work is transposed to represent Fall when the trees shed their foliage. Released by Finlay as a Christmas card. VG+
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
7.6 x 23.8cm, 4pp card with a drawing of a boat by Gary Hincks. The reference is to Briton Riviere an Edwardian painter who often painted the "chaloupes" of the Breton sardine fishery (form of rowing boat with sails) - here the boat is marked with a boat registration "C". Finlay also made a wooden sculpture with this theme. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
5.5 x 21cm, 1pp typographic card which reads PLOUGH-RED/HARROW-RED/LOEB-RED. The farming of the land is compared with the bright red dust cover colour of the "Loeb" edition of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, poems that deal with agriculture . VG+.
