Mark Stewart - Unoriginal Sins

12 Mar PROPOSAL FOR A TEMPLE OF APOLLO/SAINT JUST. 1994.

Posted at 20:09h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
10.8 x 10.4cm, 16pp plus patterned boards. The proposal here takes the form of a photograph of the site with a pull back tipped on flap that shows the landscape without the lake side temple and when pulled aside one can see the proposed building. Saint-Just was termed the "Angel of Death" by his opponents during the Terror because he was often the delegate who announced the name of those to be arrested (and often killed) at the National Assembly. Apollo is the Greek god of amongst other things justice. Both might be regarded as being capable of severe judgement. Photomontage by Peter Rogan.
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13 Jun IF THE GARDEN WERE NOT A REPUBLIC…. 1993.

Posted at 20:43h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1993
11.5 x 10.4cm, 4pp card with a painting of a watering can by Mark Stewart with the two line poem:
"If the garden were not a republic
the watering can would be king."
The watering can is an important part of any gardener's equipment and the poem notes its essential role but also refers to the 10th day of August when the Terror ended with the downfall of Robespierre and eventually the return of the monarchy (admittedly after Napoleon). VG+.

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27 Sep VOYSEY STILE. 1989.

Posted at 08:50h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
15.3 x 11.4cm, 1pp. Artist's card with a technical drawing of a fencing style by Mark Stewart which in its lines and decoration places it as art nouveau and more specifically influenced by C. F. A. Voysey who made textiles with hearts and plants as motifs. If this was ever constructed then it would be rather beautiful. VG+.

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07 Aug THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HOUSE…. 1986. WITH EXTENSIVE NOTE BY SUE FINLAY TO VICTORIA MIRO.

Posted at 18:57h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (c. 1986)
12.8 x 10cm, 1pp. Artist's card which has a text with typography and small drawings by Mark Stewart printed red on brown. The text is "The difference in a house by Voysey and a house by Lutyens is that the lobby of the former holds a toy spade and a minnow-net and that of the latter a fishing rod and a gun."
Voysey was heavily influenced by art nouveau whereas Lutyens was more practical and his houses more suited to the modern era he lived in.
This card is not found in Murray or in the online (limited) Wild Hawthorn Press listings of cards. One the back of this one is an extensive ink note from Sue Finlay to Victoria Miro asking for more copies of the invitation card (we believe the A David cards), mentioning how hot Italy had been and wishing the show to go well. Fromt his we date this card to be around 1976 and have placed it thus. VG+. Rare.

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27 Jul THE TEMPLE OF BARA. 1986.

Posted at 15:50h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
41.5 x 24.0cm, blue, red and black on white offset lithograph with a drawing by Mark Stewart of a porposed monument to celebrate the martyr Bara "the little drummer boy". Bara had been killed trying to squash the anti-revolution Vendée war and was killed by royalist counter-revolutionaries, supposedly while he was shouting "Long live the Republic!". His body was interred at the Panthéon along with other national heroes.
Clearly the Pantheon was not enough as Finlay proposed this bandstand which has architectural details that look like the side drum carried by Bara and a huge republican cockade.
One of 300 printed. Slight marking (early foxing?) to the white paper at top edge else VG.

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07 Sep TEMPLE. 1984.

Posted at 11:57h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1984
10 x 10.5cm, 1pp artist's card with a drawing of a marble temple in a landscape by Mark Stewart below which Finlay has added a definition work:
TEMPLE, n, a marble edifice, a veined edifice; the sear or summit of reason.
and two quotations from Ovid's Metamorphses and Finlay's own Despatches from the Little Spartan War. In the former quote Philemon and Baucis have their hut turned into a Temple - which Finlay clearly regards as a similar process to his own renaming of a building on the estate as the Garden Temple. The second quote notes how Strathclyde raided the Garden Temple to take away artworks in lieu of what they claimed was unpaid rates. Clearly Finlay saw the second events as sacrilegious. VG+.

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01 Jun WITHIN THE SYSTEM. 1983.

Posted at 14:38h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
15.2 x 13cm, 1pp black on white artist's card with a drawing by Mark Stewart. The full title of of the card is "WITHIN THE SYSTEM OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE THE LEAST PART OF AN ELEVATION HAS THE ABILITY TO MAKE THE WHOLE KNOWN" a quotation from Quatremere de Quncy. The drawin is of the Dovecot at Littel Sparta with a gun barrel pushing out of double doors that seem to be made out of stacked hay bales creating a tank of sorts out of the building. The low lying gun barrel certainly could make the whole known if fired.
There is another card DOVECOTE from 1983 which shows the whole of the building form a distance with the barrel hard to see. VG+.

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07 May LEXICAL DIVERSIONS. 1983.

Posted at 14:12h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
15.2 x 15.4cm , 1pp black on white artist's card. A text by Geoffrey Scott discusses Finlay's metaphors on architectural elements (from Lexical Diversions of Ian Hamilton Finlay) alongside a drawing of a Corinthian capital by Mark Stewart. VG+.

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