Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1978)
38 × 47.3cm, blue and black on white screen print showing a harbour at evening time by Gary Hincks in the style of pointillisme (perhaps even Seurat). The work is subtitled "in familiar mottle camouflage" - which is a humorous comment on the style and wartime attempts at disguising ships. VG condition.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1978
20 x 16.4cm, printed black on cream outer folder content of a single 20 x 16.4cm offset lithograph on light blue paper.
The folder has "BOIS D'AMOUR. ('LE TALISMAN')" printed at the top and the inner sheet has "Lavender Water" printed at the bottom. On the back of the folder there is also the mention that the work is "An "Homage to Sérusier."
Paul Sérusier was an abstract French painter (who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabis movement who Finlay honours elsewhere in his works) painted a major work known as "Le Talisman" in 1888 that showed a bridge crossing into a wood. That painting is usually regarded as the first of the Nabis works. The French title of the work is "Paysage au Bois d'Amour" - hence the title of Finlay's work here.
The words Lavender Water found on the second sheet are not only associated with an over-sweet smelling perfume much beloved of old ladies but is also the colour of the water under the bridge in the Serusier painting.
This was the second of Finlay's "colour paper" works (a term we have coined to categorise these innovative works) after his earlier L'embarquement pour l'Ile de Cychere of 1975. VG+>
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1979
29.6 x 21cm, full colour offset lithograph with a painting by Ron Costley. The landscape shows where Ulysses had been - but without any landmarks to clearly identify the location. Hence like Ulysses you are lost.
Moreover the phrase "Ulysses was here" also refers to the wartime graffiti "Kilroy was here" as if Ulysses had left his mark on an unknown island.
Interestingly this was original designed to be a folding card and as a result the address of Little Sparta is printed upside down at the top of the sheet. Some copies of these prints were folded by G+Finlay but this is one of the unfolded VG+ examples.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1980
60 x 82cm, black on white offset lithograph with two drawings by Gary Hincks. The first cruiser is shown in elevation, the second also but with camouflage nettings over the bows. The allusion is to classical portraits of the human form - unclothed and clothed.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
20.3 × 16.5cm, black on lilac printed outer folder with title content of a single 20.3 × 16.5cm offset lithograph printed black on blue laid paper with the word "SYMBOLISME".
One of Finlay's innovative colour paper prints (in fact the third such published) where the medium utilised is as important as the printed words, this is a visual poem in some sense that the paper colour of the inner sheet is associated with the out of fashion painterly movement as well as the sea. Moreover - Finlay emphasises a parallel between the memorial graves of dead sailors that have never been found and the death of symbolism which often used death and water as major themes.
Later a public work based on this metaphor was built in the the medieval garden of the Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
22.8 x 16.5cm, two colour lithograph in printed folder. Design and drawing by Nicholas Sloan.
Angelica and Medoro are two characters from the 16th-century Italian epic Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. Angelica was an Asian princess at the court of Charlemagne who fell in love with the Saracen knight Medoro, and eloped with him to China.
Angelica had a habit of carving the lovers' names onto trees which the print here reflects - and as the folder text explains, Finlay used their French names so that the accents on the words would reflect the marking on the tree bark. Additionally the image resembles an ex libris or bookmark.
One of 300 printed. VG in like folder.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
43.2 x 35.5cm, full colour on white paper offset lithograph with a reproduced painting by Ian Gardner of three boats near a river with trees. The sub title is "Arcades, Asphodel, Startled Fawn, below Richmond Bridge. After W. Steer, E. March, F. Carr." Asphodel is the flower that is said to carpet Hades, and a food of the dead. The image of the boats under the recognisable bridge suggests that of the passage to Hades via the Styx. The startled fawn of the original painting (presumably a composite of those by the three named painters) has long gone having presumably been startled. VG.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1982
24x 18cm, folded card with two tipped on images - the first a painting by Ian Gardner of The Temple of Fame, Studley Royal - a wooden "temple" built for William Aislabie in 1770 amongst woodlands and a extract in appears to be a facsimile of dictionary definitions but in fact gathered from various sources by Finlay for the words Dove, East, Fame, Gnomon and Horizon. VG.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1982
30.2 x 53cm, brown and black on white offset lithograph. A painting buy Ian Gadner of a line of boats - all "penny browns". Penny Brown stamps were a mid 19th century postal stamp and one presumes there is a visual correspondence between this delightful maritime scene and the idea of individual items moving to a destination. VG.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1982
61.0 x 30.5cm, brown and black on white offset lithograph. A month by month textual proposal for twelve embroidery "samplers" - each here a description of a tank in camouflage (relevant to the date) and a note of its divisional symbol - which is the relevant astrological sign for the date. A reminder of death lurking amongst the beauty of nature (hence a momento mori). VG+.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (c. 1982)
30.5 × 43.2m, red on white offset lithograph. This is one of four which carry ant-Arts Council messages in Latin. This poster print has " CONCILIUM ARTIUM DELENDUM EST" which roughly translates into "The Arts Council Must be Utterly Destroyed" although there are some liberties taken in the language by Finlay.
Printed as part of Finlay's campaign against the muribund Scottish Arts Council and Strathclyde Region over a Rates dispute, these lithographs were fly-posted on the Scottish National Gallery, the Scottish Arts Council building and other places in Edinburgh by supporters of Finlay (called the Saint-Just Vigilantes).
Apparently ‘The Arts Council Must be Utterly Destroyed’ is derived from a phrase Cato would add to the end of every speech as a reference to his hatred of Carthage.
This lithograph is folded but all copies are rare as many were used as campaign posters on the buildings as described above. Apparently the typography was by Nicholas Sloan.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
22.2 x 20cm, full colour offset lithograph showing what purports to be a secret cachet between the members of the Saint)Just Vigilantes (the support group who helped Finlay resist the attempts by Strathclyde Region to seize artworks by Finlay in lieu of what they claimed was unpaid rates for the Temple at Little Sparta). The supposed message cannot be seen as the paper itself has a camouflage pattern. (In this joke Finlay preempts a current common internet meme that camouflage makes things invisible, but we digress.) A very good + example which does not have any lemon juice or any other secret message added to it as far as we know.
