Eindhoven: Peninsula, 1995
30 x 21cm, 22pp. Original printed card covers. Artist's book with 6 b/w images by Robin Gillanders of a dog bowl with the name Brount on it. Robespierre wasn't all bad - he greatly loved his dog Brount and took it everywhere. This book, one of my favourites, has the tale of how Robespierre bought his dog and the walks he went on together. VG+
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
Two different cards - one is 9.4 x 8.3cm and the other 8.3 x 5.2cm
The first card has a text:
GILL SANS
Whatever
GILL SANS
says
it always
says
'Gill Sans"
The second card has a design by Gary Hincks, where the Underground sign has the station "GILL SANS" on it.
Gill Sans is the name of a sans-serif font family based on a design by the artist and typographer Eric Gill. It was originally inspired by another font by Edward Johnston in 1916 - an "Underground Alphabet" which Gill had helped develop as a younger man.
The font was very successful and was marketed for its clarity and lack of fuss: this seems to have caught Finlay's interest in the short poem whereas the second card is a clear reminder of the origins of the letting style. Both are VG+.
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NYC: Public Art Fund, 1995
29.5 x 19cm, opens to 38 x 59cm. Single sheet printed black on light brown. The programme for Boltanski's huge intervention into New York City.- there were 6 different exhibition or installations including Lost Property in Grand Central Station, What They Remember in Eldridge Street Synagogue where children of Jewish immigrants were asked for memories of their childhood and their taped voices played at low volume in the building, Dispersion in the Church of the Intercession and Inventory in the New York Historical Society and others. The programme describes them all with black on brown images. Folded twice as issued. VG+. Not found in any catalogue raisonne.
BR>...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
5.5 x 3.5 x 1.3cm, original "Scottish bluebell" matchbox which has been modified by the addition of a printed glued on card such that when the box is opened the "Sail" of a boat emerges with the text "WK279" upon it - the boat's number. If you wish to google it then it is a real boat - working trawler. On another part of the card the text reads: "BLUEBELL Call Sign GMWZ 38 net tons". The boat's name , of course, matches the brand of the matches.
An ingenious small object multiple that charms in the surprise of the pop up "sail". Edition size not known. VG+.
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Firenze: Zona Archives, 1995 15 x 10.5cm, 36pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket. Monograph and review of international concrete poetry written by Maurizio Nannucci and Gabriele Detterer. Contains pageworks by most of the proponents of the genre - Mons, Gappmayr, de Vries, Kriwet, Spatola, Gomringer, Williams, de Campos, Mayer and Finlay's "Acrobat" in its b/w version is reprinted also. VG+. ...
30 x 24 x 24cm, two part deliberately rusted tin box with pasted on label with the name "ANNIE HANNAFORD". An unique box from the large installation "The Work People of Halifax" first displayed in Yorkshire, UK in 1995. The installation consists of thousands of such boxes each with a label with a different name from the many employees of the Dean Clough carpet factory which closed in 1983. The size of the installation varies depending on the space allocated to it when exhibited.
This is one of the boxes - a gift from the artist. In VG+ condition.
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30 x 24 x 24cm, two part deliberately rusted tin box with pasted on label with the name "MARY LISTER". An unique box from the large installation "The Work People of Halifax" first displayed in Yorkshire, UK in 1995. The installation consists of thousands of such boxes each with a label with a different name from the many employees of the Dean Clough carpet factory which closed in 1983. The size of the installation varies depending on the space allocated to it when exhibited.
This is one of the boxes - a gift from the artist. In VG+ condition.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
6 x 12cm, 4pp. A monostich is a one line poem -
Inside the poem reads "It rains, and the old thatched hut blossoms again".
Finlay is comparing the new foliage after spring's rains to the roofing made of branches in traditional homes. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
5.4 x 4.3cm, 8pp, plus card covers and printed cream dust jacket. Internally there is a text:
"Apples are points in the fields of Eragny".
The painting "Fields of Eragny" is by the pointilliste Camille Pissarro - an art style that was made up by coloured dots on the canvas that "mixed in the retina" (although in actuality more like the visual cortex). Hence an apple in the painting would be nothing more than a dot due to both the style and the distance the painter was from the tree. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
6 x 12cm, 6pp concertina folded card. A text "one piece of driftwood patched on another" is repeated on three of the panels - but the typography of each is different with various fonts used to emphasis different aspects of the conjured images. The different fonts also reflect the text in that each is "patched" upon another in an unusual way that still creates a harmonious whole. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.. (1990)
14 x 11.4cm, 4pp printed outer folder with 4pp insert - a typographic design which is part artist's card and part poem in a folder. There are two poems inside on the inner sheet:
Morning
The solace of chill fields.
and
Evening
A broken bow of geese.
Both simple works reflect the style of the Imagists of which Yvor Winters was a key early figure (along with Pound and Elliot) - simplistic and minimal but accurate in the use of language. Additionally both images in the poem are winter scenes - punning on the poet's name and the title. VG+.
We have placed this work as an artist's card because of its promotion as such by Finlay but it could be argued to be otherwise. In fact the Wild Hawthorn Press indicate it is a "valentine" card!...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
12.5 x 13cm, 48pp plus flower pattern boards and tipped on book title label. Artist's book with ten woodcuts by Gary Hincks of flowers opposite epigrams by Finlay such as
4. A wild flower is a garden flower permeated by morality and poetry."
One of only 250 such books prints as Christmas gifts. VG+
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