MARINE. 1968. COLLABORATION WITH PATRICK CAULFIELD.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1968 45.9 × 52cm, yellow and black on white silkscreen. A collaboration with the well known British pop artist Caulfield in the latter's bold, thick out-llined style. Four lemons are in a bowl, and the word MARINE is next to the bowl seemingly on a piece of wood or card (possibly a fisherman's slip used to identify who owned what fish boxes when the catch went to market).
In a number of different works, Finlay often compares lemons to boats - so this is on one level a scene of a harbour: the lemons are made even more obviously to represent boats as they each has port registration numbers on them.,
The edition size is not known. All copies of the print are unsigned (which was Finlay's preference but a little unusual for the pop artist). There are some scuffs on the black of this silkscreen but else VG. This is a very rare print - partly for the later popularity of Caulfield.
JOINT:
15 x 21cm, 1pp. Printed compliments slip "Marine: Ian Hamilton Finlay:drawn by Patrick Caulfield" and with added hand written note: "Love from Ian, 4 January 1969". Perhaps might be regarded in lieu of a signature.
BR> MEDIUM Screenprint on paper DIMENSIONS Image:

SEAMS. 1969.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969
43.5 x 56.3cm, dark blue on white silkscreen print. The word SEAMS descends repeated vertically but there is a space between the SEA and MS. A concrete poem - the space between the parts of the word create a form of negative seam where the two parts of the word are joined. Additionally the first part of the word SEA places this work as a maritime piece - and the splitting of the word is much like the way water is parted by a vessel passing through. Further MS is often an abbreviation of manuscript - and this piece of paper might be seen as such a document.
Like much of Finlay this is a deceptively simple looking construction but on consideration is much much more than just a visual pun.
The image we have used here is from a publication - the print we hold is framed in wood and glass and hard to image without reflections - but the work is in VG+ condition.

GREAT ROUND THE BAY RACE LOBSTER-BOATS LOOK NIPPY. 1969. PROOF COPY ON THIN CARD.

Woodchester: Openings Press, n.d. 1969
48 x 48cm, blue and brown on thin card - a proof copy of a concrete poetry work which offers a made up headline which is more or less a joke. The text being set on a round baseline reflects the fictitious race being "round the bay".
Possibly unique in form on this paper, this was an early text proof of a page created with John Furnival as part of his later published Portfolio (see listing elsewhere). VG+.

POEM/PRINT NO.11 (XMAS STAR). 1969.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press 1969
51 x 71cm. Printed b/w offset. Furnival's outline drawing of a Scottish fishing boat is placed above Finlay's poem appropriated from the boat number, port, size and painted name - here the boat is called Xmas Star. A companion print to Poem/Print no 14 (Xmas Rose). When shown together the two prints have boats going in a different directions. Very good condition. One of 350 copies. Druckgrafik nr 4.69.2.

POEM/PRINT NO.14 (XMAS ROSE). 1969. ONE OF ONLY 350 COPIES

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press 1970
51 x 71cm. Printed b/w offset. Furnival's outline drawing of a Scottish fishing boat is placed above Finlay's poem appropriated from the boat number, port, size and painted name - here Xmas Rose. A companion print to Poem/Print No. 11 (Xmas Star). Very good condition. One of 350 copies. Druckgrafik nr 4.70.4.

ERRATA. 1970. ONE OF 300 SIGNED & NUMBERED EXAMPLES.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1970
25 x 55cm, b.w offset lithograph of a drawing of a trawler (by David Button) with a semi-opaque overlay of a text: ERRATA/Bow and stern of trawler for "KY" read A. " Is this a dirty joke? Not really Finlay's thing but it could be correct as A is often "arse" in vernacular and the stern of a trawler is the arse of the boat. KY is a brand of lubricant and a "trawler" might well be someone who "gets around". On balance I think we are forced to accept that this is somewhat blue which is surprising.
One of 300 signed and numbered examples in paper folder.
Murray 5.18.

EVENING WILL COME THEY WILL SEW THE BLUE SAIL. 1970. FIRST EDITION.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1970
70 x 82cm, full colour offset lithograph with the title text.
The following comes from an unpublished book by Paul Robertson who created this collection:
"I want to give another example of a work that requires background knowledge to be well understood. It is a work by Ian Hamilton Finlay - a Scottish artist who once told me that he was not really an artist but rather a poet. Indeed Finlay was originally universally identified as a poet creating early books from 1958 onwards which contained poems which would be easily be recognised as following traditional structures albeit written in lowland Scots but by 1963 Finlay was beginning to experiment with concrete or visual poetry forms - the placing of the words on the page having meaning as much as the syntax or choice of the words. Around the same time Finlay (who had always made wooden toys and small boats) began to use his poems as the starting point for sculptural works, prints and unique installations directly in the landscape. In 1966 Finlay, along with his then wife Susan, purchased a former farm and a thirty plus year project to sculpt the land into a major artistic garden (or perhaps better thought of as a multi-acre sculpture) was begun.
I first visited Little Sparta (the name Finlay eventually gave to the gardens after initially retaining the farm name of Stoneypath) in the 1990s and Finlay was there wearing an old Glasgow Rangers jacket and drinking tea out of a large mug. He was a little reticent to talk art - but I was a collector of the artist-poet's works so I pushed him a little. I had found a wooden carving in a grassy area behind his cottage and recognised it by the text found beneath a relief of a ship. The text said “Evening will come. They will sew the blue sail.” I recognised that text from one of Finlay’s best known prints - an entirely typographic work printed white on blue in a long vertical rectangle. The white text is printed so that no word is longer than four letters (by the use of hyphenation) and each line is offset from each other such that as one reads down the artwork the text seems to zig-zag.
I realised the wooden sculpture I had found was the first ever artwork by Finlay utilising that text and as such was an important historical source for the work which was later recreated in different formats. The wood was rotting and I suggested to Finlay that he should really bring the sculpture back into the house (or put it in the mini-art gallery Finlay had created which he referred to in his classicist manner as The Temple). Finlay did not skip a beat and simply said to me: “No. Let it return to the earth.”
That acceptance of decay and the inescapable fact that everything will ultimately return to earth was more than just a lazy retort to my concern for the future understanding of Finlay’s work. it was entirely appropriate for a work which at its very core is a momento mori: a classical reminder of man’s limited lifespan on this earth. The entire work is imbued with the same meaning as Yoko Ono’s brief staring into a burning match in the dark.
The print version of “Evening will come. They will sew the blue sail.” is a remarkable work and one which has multiple and deep meanings.
Finlay was always fascinated by the Scottish fishing communities. It can be surmised from his work that he saw a simpler, smaller mostly rural community as some purer way of living although this complex intellectual also defined other characteristics and motifs from that sea-centric way of life. When one considers the bald text of “Evening will come. They will sew the blue sail.” the first meaning of the work is a simple description of how at night after the boats had returned, the sails were repaired by the community. That is straight-forward and a tad romantic - suggesting an almost idyllic honouring of decent honest labour.
There are other meanings to the text however - the first is a metaphor for the cycle of day and night - the blue sky here is the sail and at the end of the night is disappeared, presumably to be ‘repaired’ to return the next day as perfectly as twenty-four hours before.
The third meaning is about the return of the boats to harbour and one has to look to another of Finlay’s works to see the clue that reveals this meaning. “The Little Seamstress” is another print which Finlay made in conjunction with Richard Demarco (one of the poets earliest collaborators, Finlay usually worked with skilled artisans and other artists to create his works - the poetic concept being more important to Finlay than artisan activity on his on behalf). “The Little Seamstress” (1970) was created in the same year as “Evening will come.” and shows a fishing boat returning to port, as was typical, using its on-board engine to propel itself homeward. The title of the print can be read as a name of the fishing boat itself but the secondary meaning can be seen as the white flecks of waves created on the blue sea behind the boat look like white cotton on a blue cloth. This is the reference in “Evening will come.” - the boat returning home and the "put put" of white foam on the blue sea.
That last meaning is also reflected in the typography and the placing of the white words (and parts of hyphenated words) on a blue background - but more than just the beauty of the particular part-italic font employed on a strong blue colour is the subtle off-setting of each line where the zig-zagging of the words is a reminder of the way no boat tends to sail in a straight line - it is a direct visual representation of the tacking of a sail boat.
One might think that is enough - but no Finlay has one more layer of disguised meaning in the work and this in particular makes his remark to me “Let it return to the earth” particularly poignant. The work is about death and how such an inescapable fact of non-life is treated in fishing villages where a shroud is sometimes sewn from a sail with the dead fisherman (usually male) inside before being buried or given to the ocean. That is clear from the text but on a more metaphysical level the text “Evening will come. They will sew the blue sail.” is a momento mori - a classical reference to remind us to live life as fully as we may for it will end one day.
I have had a copy of this Finlay work in my living room for the last twenty years and I think it a masterpiece. I will keep it on display in my home until I die. Finlay in nine words has given us a universe of deep contemplation. One cannot find a better work that while seeming simple and simultaneously , much like Felix Gonzalez-Torres' Untitled (Perfect Lovers), perplexing."

Text copyright - Paul Robertson. 2014.

CATAMARINGUE. 1970

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1970
35.5 x 44.5cm silkscreen in two colours on paper: a visual pun on a cat's paws, a boat and a tea-time cake. Drawing after Finlay's instruction by Peter Grant. One of 350 released. Slight mark on left else VG.

HOMAGE TO MOZART. 1970

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1970
58 x 51cm, black and silver on white silkscreen. The ship drawn by Ron Costley has elaborate rigging and sails - hence reflecting Mozart's highly complex musical forms. A visual poem.
The image we have used here is from a publication - the print we hold is framed in wood and glass and hard to image without reflections - but the work is in VG+ condition.

THE LITTLE SEAMSTRESS. 1970.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1970
46 × 58.9cm, blue and brown silkscreen on white paper with a drawing by Richard Demarco of a homeward bound boat . The title of the work refers to the way a boat's engine (which was oen the method used to propel the boat at the end of the fishing trip to port) caused a rhythmic splash of white foam. The even spacing of the "put put" meant that the white specks against the blue water looked like a continuous stitch of white cotton. VG.

GLOSSARY. 1971.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1971 22.8 × 82.5cm, folder with the blue on green image by Richard Demarco on the front with a gatefold opening which in turn reveals the exact same image on the inner print but in a different colour blue on blue.
A view of boats roped up in a harbour displays three or four different types of fishing boat (two look very similar but a non-expert cannot be sure). The registration numbers and letters on one boat can be seen.
The title "glossary" more usually means "an alphabetical list of words relating to a specific subject, text, or dialect, with explanations; a brief dictionary" - one might see this selection of boats - each numbered as required by maritime law - as a visual glossary of sea-going vessels. One of 300 such prints made. VG.

A FULL-RIGGED SHIP, IN THE MANNER OF FUSELI. 1971. ONE OF 300 SIGNED AND NUMBERED PRINTS IN FOLDER.

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1971
25.5 x 20.5cm, 6pp white folder with colophon. Laid in is an original lithograph of 'A Full-Rigged Ship in the manner of Fuseli. The Archangel of Archangel' which is drawn as a concrete and visual poem. The ascending lines for the word Archangel are curved upwards (the florid styling being reminiscent of some of Henry Fuseli's work although not all). The owrd becomes the ship itself.
This copy is signed and numbered by Finlay on the cover as part of the limited edition of 300 copies. Murray 5.28

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