Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1983)
A portfolio of four different 21 x 29.5 cm, 1pp offset lithographs printed red and black on cream paper each with a text from Saint-Just as chosen by Finlay:
EQUALITY DOES NOT CONSIST IN EVERYONE BEING ARROGANT BUT IN EVERYONE BEING MODEST.
LONG LAWS ARE PUBLIC CALAMITIES
THE WARS OF LIBERTY MUST BE CONDUCTED WITH RAGE
WHEN MAN OBEYS WITHOUT BEING PRESUMED GOOD THERE IS NEITHER LIBERT NOR A NATIVE LAND.
VG+. Scarce.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1994)
63 x 51 cm, blue on white offset lithograph displaying a boat in blue. The drawing by Gary Hincks and after a detail from a painting by WIlliam Gillies.
Yet another example of Finlay's intense interest in maritime affairs and the title reflects other works where the poet compares boats to lemons - even blue lemons.
As I write these words I can walk outside my back garden and see William Gillies's former house in Temple, Midlothian.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
60 x 27cm linocut in black/brown on white paper. Drawing after Ben Nicholson by Gary Hincks.
The images are a repeating reproduction of a fishing boat box end although the letting at the bottom consists of the initials of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gary Hincks and the Wild Hawthorn Press. Sadly we do not know and cannot find the origin Nicholson print this is based on - many of Finlay's later prints reproduced works inspired by Nicholson. We also believe there was a green print variant of this work. VG.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
30.5 x 28cm, offset lithograph printed brown and black on cream paper. The linocut image by Gary Hincks is of two mugs each with boat registration numbers on them . The work is inspired by a Ben Nicholson painting - also Two Mugs - the same outline of the crockery is used by Hincks.
Both mugs are steaming from their contents - but in the drawing this makes them a visual parallel to the funnels of steam boats. Hence this is a maritime work and more than just a still life.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1997
30.5 x 28cm, offset lithograph printed brown and black on cream paper. The linocut image by Gary Hincks is of three mugs and a (sugar) bowl which has three small boat propellors in it much like flowers might be put in the absence of a vase. The work is inspired by a Ben Nicholson painting - Three Mugs and a Bowl - the same outline of the crockery is used by Hincks but the propellors are not there in the original.
Keilkraft Propellers are toy accessories used in model making so it is plausible that they might be left in a cup as storage in a strange still life but the positioning of the three propeller blades here suggest they are meant to propel the three coffee cups in some way. The coffee cups therefore become boats and the drawing a seascape.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998 14 x 21.5cm, black on cream offset backing sheet with a 7.2 x 15.2cm, tipped on full colour reproduction of a cheque from Graham Rich but with the latter's signature replaced with one of his small stylised ship drawings. This was a gift from Finlay to his friend Rich which followed a conversation about :"signatures" between the two artists. Limitation not known - probably 350. VG+. JOINT: 30 x 21cm, 1pp colour inkjet reproducing Finlay's letter to Rich in which he included the print. Folded for mailing.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
88 x 63cm, black silkscreen on white paper - the image by Ron Costley is of the prow of a boat with the usual ballast level markings in the form of Roman numerals staggered to indicate the leading edge of the ship. At the bottom is the word PROEM in similar typography. A proem is a preface or preamble to a book or speech - thus the drawing of the front of the boat is a preamble to the larger work - the vessel.
This is one of a pair of prints both drawn by Costley - the other being a line drawing of the boat's prow with the same title. Only 150 examples of each were printed. VG+.
Eindhoven: October Foundation, n.d. (1999)
42 x 30cm, full colour offset lithograph with an image of a "blue flower". Cornelia Wieg, curator of the Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg in Halle, Germany, took a photograph of a tree bark in the garden of the Novalis Haus in Weissenfels. Finlay digitally rotated a fragment of this photograph by 180 degress and found an abstract "Blue Flower" from the unfinished last novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802) by Novalis, which became a symbol of Romanticism. If one turns the print then one can see the original carving of a date into the tree! One of only 125 such prints issued. VG+.
Eindhoven: October, 1999
20 x 55cm, full colour offset-lithograph with a reproduced painting by Janet Boulton of a bramble branch. Peter Foolen notes: "This beautiful watercolour is in contrast with the painful thorns of the bramble branch which resembles the long poles with hooks used to catch tunny (the boat used to fish tunny is named Thonier)". One of 125 unsigned copies. VG+.
This work was given by Finlay to Paul Robertson as a gestural gift during a visit to Little Sparta when the poet asked Robertson to proofread a small pamphlet by Finlay that had been translated into English by Finlay's assistant.
