Images(3)

The Desmoulins Connection

Artist Ian Hamilton Finlay (Nassau, Bahamas, 1925 - 2006)

AssociatedAssociated with The Guardian

AssociatedAssociated with National Trust

Date1987

Object NamePlace Card

Mediumcard, ink

ClassificationsPrints

DimensionsCard, folded: 4.6 x 10cm
Envelope: 8.8 x 15.2cm
Poem: 17.5 x 14.8cm

AcquisitionPresented in 2010 by Joyce Laing OBE.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG017436

About MeSet of three folding place cards, each printed with a different quote on a different colour of card (red, blue and yellow). The quotes make critical reference to Waldemar Januszczack, art critic of the Guardian, in connection with the "Follies War" with the National Trust. The cards are purportedly issued by the Committee of Public Safety, Little Sparta, Dunsyre, Lanark, Scotland. They were found in an envelope addressed to Joyce Laing along with a poem type-written onto one side of a small sheet, presumably enclosed by the artist when he sent these cards to Laing. It reads as follows:

From 'Parisien Clerihews'

Catherine Millet
Donned something frilly.
It was part of a secret plan
Formed with Louis Cane.

(Catherine Millet is a French writer, art critic, curator and founder of the magazine 'Art Press'; Louis Cane is a French sculptor and painter.)

This work is part of an archive that belonged to Joyce Laing, OBE. The artist, Ian Hamilton Finlay, was a personal friend and sent her an example of each new poem print and multiple as it was made.