Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
9 x 13cm, 1pp artist's card printed red on white. The text "IN A FAUVE PAINTING THE MOST IMPORTANT COLOUR IS GREY" which is of course a jarring statement as the one thing Fauvism is identified with is a bright colour palette. VG+. .
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 15.1cm, 1pp artist's card printed blue and ochre on white. The text has a "b" then "oats" allowing it to be read both as oats and boats. Beneath is found "The Orcadian is a crofter with a boat while the Shetlander is a fisherman with a croft" apparently a traditional saying. Hence one can read the Oats/Boats as a direct representation of the saying. Finlay lived for some years in Orkney in a fisher community where he was employed as a shepherd. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10 x 6.5cm, envelope with printed label content of two 3.5 x 5cm 1pp folded cards.
The first card created by Thomas A Clark and Laurie Clark reads "FOLDING THE LAST LAMB" meaning the animals have been placed in a pen. The second card by Finlay reads FOLDING THE LAST SAIL" which has a double meaning of storing a sail and/or folding a sail around a dead sailor as a form of coffin before burial at sea.Both cards are folded - adding a physicality to the metaphors by altering the cards themselves.
This is the second version of Finlay's card - previously published by the Wild Hawthorn Press in 1997 in a larger size and alone but with an acknowledgement to the Clarks. This version has both the original card and its adaption.VG+.
Glasgow: WAX366, 1998
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. Full colour artist postcard by Finlay's former assistant but visual poet in his own right. A photograph of one of Finlay's toy boats seen from outside the building through the window is on the front, vwrso standard postcard design. The title references "Family of Saltimbanques " painting by Pablo Picasso in 1905 - an itinerant group of actors.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 14.1cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on grey. The text has a quotation from Heidegger's The Country Lane. Heidegger often walked a particular lane deep in his thoughts but this scene mentions how children he encountered made pretend boats from peeled oak bark and how "those play voyages knew nothing yet of journeys upon which all shores are left behind" - a consideration of how death is not a thought in the happy minds of the young. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10 x 13.5cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on dark blue (perhaps reflecting the low light of the film room). Finlay tells the tale of how he would watch Captains Courageous (in the East Neuk of Fife) as a young boy and the cinema projector was powered by an old fishing engine which meant the children could hear the put-put throughout the film which was about Massachusetts fishing industry looking for cod. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
17 x 12cm, 2pp artist's card printed black on white with a linocut by Gary Hincks after Ben Nicholson's Three Goblets. The linocut is similar to the original abstract work in that three rudders are shown overlapping in the design. A Coble is a North East English fishing boat with a long thin rudder which is reproduced here. A second card with a very similar drawing was published at the same time in black on blue. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
17 x 12cm, 2pp artist's card printed black on blue with a linocut by Gary Hincks after Ben Nicholson's Three Goblets. The linocut is similar to the original abstract work in that three rudders are shown overlapping in the design. A Coble is a North East English fishing boat with a long thin rudder which is reproduced here. This is the second of two cards with a very similar drawing was published at the same time in black on white. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
18.5 x 9.2cm, 2pp artist's card printed brown and black on white with a linocut by Gary Hincks after Ben Nicholson's Brown with Little Squares. The linocut is similar to the original abstract work with its rectangular shapes but here the squares are fishboxes complete with the occasional boat reference number. This is the third of three cards published by the Press which takes the original work by the St Ives artist as a jumping off point. . VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.2 x 15.2cm, 1pp artist's card printed brown on brown with a text in French:
LE SOCIALISME DEVRAIT FAIRE POUR LE PEUPLE CE QUE LE CUBISME
A FAIT POUR LE COUTEAU, LA FOUCHETTE ET LEA CUILLERE.
In translation that reads that "socialism should do for the people what cubism has done for the knife, the fork and the spoon".
Cubist still-life paintings often showed common implements such as knives and forks as significant elements in their composition, and Finlay here is suggesting that socialism should raise the lot of working people and give them significance in a similar manner. Finlay's politics are often assumed to be right-wing because of his interest in virtue, piety and classicism but that is not necessarily the case. This is the first of two cards with the same content but the design is different here with much more formal typography. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
9.5 x 15cm, 2pp card. The text printed gray on white in reverse reads:
trackless snows of the cool icelandic girl
The white on grey makes the card seem cold and distant perhaps reflecting the virginal scene.
We do not know the date of this card but we believe it to be a late printing but published prior to Finlay's death. VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.2 x 15.2cm, 1pp artist's card printed brown and green on white with a text in French:
LE SOCIALISME DEVRAIT FAIRE POUR LE PEUPLE CE QUE LE CUBISME
A FAIT POUR LE COUTEAU, LA FOUCHETTE ET LEA CUILLERE.
In translation that reads that "socialism should do for the people what cubism has done for the knife, the fork and the spoon".
Cubist still-life paintings often showed common implements such as knives and forks as significant elements in their composition, and Finlay here is suggesting that socialism should raise the lot of working people and give them significance in a similar manner. This was the second of two cards with the same text but with different designs - here the look of the card is much more like a wall poster and demanding. VG+.
