IAN HAMILTON FINLAY

ARTIST’S POSTCARDS

3 HOMERIC HEROES. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
5.4 x 13.4cm,8pp card (concertina folded from the top) with three drawings of battleships by Gary Hincks. The three are Ajax, Exeter and Achilles. These were the three ships that attacked the German Graf Spee at the Battle of Little Plate and while losing the battle in many ways, forced the larger ship to flee under smoke. The attack was herioc and Finlay compares the attack to Greek attacks in the Iliad where Ajax and Achilles are main characters. VG+.

TIDINGS. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
9.2 x 12.6cm, 4pp card with a colour photograph of a collection of marine artefacts collated by Robert Callender. The title of the card being a double meaning of both good news and of items found at low tide. VG+.

HULLS. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10 x 14.6cm, 1pp card which reads:

bread-and-butter
carvel or clinker
pan or plain

The first two alternatives are choices between hull types, the last a choice between ways of making bread in Scotland (which refers back to the first of the pairings. By the way plain bread is much nicer than the pan. VG+.

PLOVER/PLOWER. 1998. WITH DEDICATION FROM FINLAY.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
12.6 x 5.6cm, 4pp card which reads:

plover

plower

and an arrow that indicates the date "spring 98" inside the card.
The card describes a country scene from the early year.
This card has "love from Ian" written in pencil by Finlay on the back of the card. VG+.

PAN-PIPES. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
8.2 x 8.9cm, 4pp card which has a drawing on the front of torpedo tubes from a battleship which are labeled "pan-pipes" because of the similarity in the shape of both things. VG+.

OARAGE OF WINGS. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 13.5cm, 1pp black on blue card which refers to a Vickers-Supermarine Walrus "evoked in W F. Jackson Knight's Aenid" as an oarage of wings. The image is that of how oars move in the water looking similar to wings. The airplane was a reconnaissance biplane that could land on water and Montague writes of the oarage of the wings of a great bird. VG+.

LEMON WITH ORANGES. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
11 x 14cm, 2pp artist's card with a painting by Janet Boulton reproduced on the front. The title notes the similarities of a boat to a lemon (something often noted by Finlay) and the cargo here is a mass of oranges. VG+.

Janet Boulton

SPRAY. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 21.5cm, 4pp artist's card with a drawing by Gary Hincks of the long line of hooked lines (called a spray) used in Thonier French fishing. The image also has the overall look of water spraying. This card has a lengthy ink note from Gary Hincks to Janet Boulton (both Finlay collaborators) pointing out the work is a "twin" of her work "Thonier". Hincks writes: "it is a rod with lines and hooks from the Breton "Thonier: (tuna fishing boat). The rod is raised - as here when sailing out to the fishing grounds." VG+.

Gary Hincks

THE HOMEWARD STAR… 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.4 x 14.5cm, 1pp artist's card with two texts in a black oval:

The homeward star
The stitching sail

The homeward sail
The stitching star

Finlay notes the words "homeward star: occur in Samuel Palmers translation of Virgil's First Eclogue.
This card transposes the star and sail to alter the meaning of each phrase - a relatively common device used by Finlay in his poetry. The stitching sale being the way a sailor might be stitched into a sail when he died, the homeward sail being a reference to the end of life as well as a returning boat (again another Finlay trope). Both lines are momento mori. VG+.

AFTER THE GERMAN: DAS GEPFLUGTE LAND. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
12 x 15cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on light brown. DAS GEPFLUGTE LAND translates to THE FLUTED LAND. The German comes from a number of early writers and refers to the ploughed fields and rolling countryside seen from a distance. Finlay quotes both Holderin and Schiller and gives a key to some german words for plough, undulating, flight and wing - bringing the text back to flying birds as well as the rural scene VG+. .

DAS GEPFLUGTE LAND. 1998.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
7.6 x 16.5cm, 4pp artist's card printed red and black on light brown. This is a second card published by Finlay with the title. A drawing of ploughed fields by Ron Costley is conjoined with "DAS GEPFLUGTE LAND/THE FLUTED LAND". This version of the conceptual idea is more visual in its form than the previous card but the meaning is essentially the same - the rural landscape can be seen as a rutted flute. VG+. .

CUP DU MONDE/WORLD CUP. 1998. POSTCARD COLLECTION.

Edinburgh: Morning Star Publications/Water press. Wax366, 1998
16.2 x 22.9cm, printed envelope content of four artists' postcards by David Bellingham, Alec Finlay, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Kevin Henderson issued on the occasion of the 1998 football world cup in France.
Ian Hamilton Finlay's card is "Relative Geography" which was a concrete poem originally published in "Tea-leaves and Fishes" from 1966. The text reads:

Britain: North Pole Equator South Pole Brazil: North Pele Equator South Pele

Pele of course was the world famous footballer who was often regarded as the Greatest Of All Time. All cards are VG+ in like envelope. The co-publisher Morning Star Press was the idea of Finlay's son Eck Finlay (now Alex FInlay).

Alec Finlay, David Bellingham, Kevin Henderson