15 Mar STANDING POEM 2. (APPLE/HEART 1). 1965.

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1965)
20.3 x 13cm, printed 1pp. Folded on both sides allowing the card to stand as intended. The inner images are of an apple in red with a black stalk which metamorphoses step by step into a heart. Alongside that graphical change the word LOVE slowly emerges also first with a l then LO then LOV then LOVE. On each step the letter shapes added have some similarities with the red apple shape changing – for example the V in love appears as the top of the round apple indents in a V shape as part of the way to the final image. This is then mirrored by a second exact group of images and text in parallel.

The previous standing card (Standing Card 1) involved a pear appearing and disappearing – here an apple has a similar fate. In a simple card expressing love is a depth of metaphor and physical similarities. Like much of the best of Finlay the work has multiple readings.

This is a scarce card – Murray in his flawed catalogue raisonne claims it as the third ever card published but it is more probably the fifth if one includes the earlier typescript from 1963 in this collection. VG+ condition.