thumb|The grave of Ian Hamilton Finlay, [[Abercorn churchyard]]

Ian Hamilton Finlay (28 October 1925 – 27 March 2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.

Life

Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas, to James Hamilton Finlay and his wife, Annie Pettigrew, both of Scots descent.

He was educated at Dollar Academy in Clackmannanshire and later at Glasgow School of Art. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of the Second World War, he was evacuated to family in the countryside (firstly to Gartmore and then to Kirkcudbright). In 1942, he joined the British Army. He died in Edinburgh in 2006. He is buried alone in Abercorn Churchyard in West Lothian, Scotland. The grave lies in the extreme south-east corner of the churchyard. The gravestone refers to his parents and sister.

Poetry

At the end of the war, Finlay worked as a shepherd, before beginning to write short stories and poems, while living on Rousay, in Orkney. He published his first book, The Sea Bed and Other Stories, in 1958, with some of his plays broadcast on the BBC, and some stories featured in The Glasgow Herald. Dancers was included in its entirety in a New Directions annual a few years later.

In 1963, Finlay published Rapel, his first collection of concrete poetry (poetry in which the layout and typography of the words contributes to its overall effect), and it was as a concrete poet that he first gained wide renown. Much of this work was issued through his own Wild Hawthorn Press, in his magazine Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.

Finlay became notable as a poet, when reducing the monostich form to one word with his concrete poems in the 1960s. Repetition, imitation and tradition lay at the heart of Hamilton's poetry, and exploring "the juxtaposition of apparently opposite ideas".

Art

Later, Finlay began to compose poems to be inscribed into stone, incorporating these sculptures into the natural environment.

This kind of 'poem-object' features in the garden Little Sparta that he and Sue Finlay created together in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, although Finlay was always explicit that while "the original brief suggests sculpture being added to the garden, but I had them revise this to the understanding that the work would be the garden itself." The five-acre garden also includes more conventional sculptures and two garden temples.

In December 2004, in a poll conducted by Scotland on Sunday, a panel of fifty artists, gallery directors and arts professionals voted Little Sparta to be the most important work of Scottish art. Second and third were the Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and The Skating Minister by Henry Raeburn. Sir Roy Strong has said of Little Sparta that it is "the only really original garden made in this country since 1945".

The Little Sparta Trust plans to preserve Little Sparta for the nation by raising enough to pay for an ongoing maintenance fund. Richard Ingleby, Ian Kennedy, Magnus Linklater, and Ann Uppington are trustees. <!-- 20061122 Kennedy: Professor Sir Ian Kennedy LLD? Mr. Justice Ian Kennedy?; --> Former trustees include Ian Appleton, Stephen Bann, Stephen Blackmore, Patrick Eyres, John Leighton, Duncan Macmillan, Victoria Miro, Paul Nesbitt and Jessie Sheeler. <!-- 20061122 Appleton: appleforth was 403 and no link at ed.ac.uk; Sheeler, Simig: no link; -->

thumb|upright=1.25|left|Hamilton Finlay and George Oliver's 1973 Arcadia [[screenprint uses camouflage in modern art to contrast leafy peace and military hardware. He continually revisited war themes and the concept of the Utopian Arcadia in his work. In the 1982 exhibition The Third Reich Revisited, Nazi iconography featured on architectural drawings by Ian Appleton, with captions by Finlay which could be read as a sardonic critique of Scotland's arts establishment.

Finlay came into conflict with the Strathclyde Regional Council over his liability for rates on a byre in his garden, which the council insisted was being used as commercial premises. Finlay insisted that it was a garden temple. His propaganda campaign against the Council between 1982 and 1985 became known as the Little Spartan War.

Finlay's use of Nazi imagery led to an accusation of neo-Nazi sympathies and antisemitism which resulted in the loss of two commissions to mark the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989, The Belvedere of Thiais and Un Jardin Revolutionaire at Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs, Versailles. Finlay sued the Paris magazine Art Press which had made the accusations, and was awarded nominal damages of one franc. The stress of this situation brought about the separation between Finlay and his wife Sue.

One of the few gardens outside Scotland to permanently display his work is the Improvement Garden in Stockwood Discovery Centre, Luton, created in collaboration with Sue Finlay, Gary Hincks and Nicholas Sloan.

Finlay was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1985. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Aberdeen University in 1987, Heriot-Watt University in 1993 and the University of Glasgow in 2001, and an honorary and/or visiting professorship from the University of Dundee in 1999. The French Communist Party presented him with a bust of Saint-Just in 1991. He received the Scottish Horticultural Medal from the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society in 2002, and the Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Award in 2003. Finlay was appointed a CBE in the Queen's 2002 New Year Honours.

Finlay's work has been seen as austere, but also at times witty, or even darkly whimsical.

He is represented by the Wild Hawthorn Press, the Archive of Ian Hamilton Finlay, which works closely with the Ingleby Gallery (Edinburgh) and the Victoria Miro Gallery (London) in the U.K.

Collaborators

Finlay's designs were most often built by others. Finlay respected the expertise of sandblasters, engravers and printers he worked with, having approximately one hundred collaborators including Patrick Caulfield, Richard Demarco, Malcolm Fraser, Christopher Hall, Margot Sandeman. He also worked with a host of lettering artists including Michael Harvey and Nicholas Sloan and Vincent Butler.

Printed works

<!-- Missing image removed: thumb|196px|right|Ian Hamilton Finlay, Star / Steer, 1966, at [[the Tate and National Galleries of Scotland.]] -->

  • Wild Hawthorn Press
  • Little Sparta Trust
  • Ingleby Gallery
  • National Galleries of Scotland
  • Victoria Miro Gallery
  • Tate
  • UK Government Art Collection
  • Art Gallery of New South Wales

Sculptures and gardens

thumb|right|Five Columns by Finlay in the [[Kröller-Müller Museum]]

A partial list of Finlay sculptures and gardens. A few photographs are reachable through the external links.

  • Little Sparta, (with Sue Finlay), Dunsyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland, 1966
  • Canterbury sundial, Canterbury, England, University of Kent, near Rutherford College, 1972
  • UNDA wall, Schiff, Windflower, Stuttgart, Germany, Max Planck Institute, 1975
  • anteboreum, Yorkshire, England, private garden
  • sundial, Liège, Belgium, University of Liège, 1976
  • sundial, Bonn, Germany, British Embassy, 1979
  • Five Columns for the Kröller-Müller, second title: A Fifth Column for the Kröller-Müller, third title: Corot – Saint-Just, tree-column bases named LYCURGUS, ROUSSEAU, ROBESPIERRE, MICHELET, COROT, Otterlo, the Netherlands, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, 1982
  • sundial, Cherrybank Gardens, Perth, 1984
  • a basket of lemons, a plough of the Roman sort, two oval plaques, Pistoia, Italy, Villa Celle, 1984
  • Vienna, Austria, Schweizergarten, 1985
  • Brittany, France, Domain de Kerguehennec, 1986
  • Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Van Abbemuseum, 1986
  • A Remembrance of Annette, with Nicholas Sloan, Münster, Germany, Uberwasser Cemetery, 1987
  • UNDA, with Sue Finlay and Nicholas Sloan, San Diego, Stuart Collection, 1987
  • Furka Pass, Switzerland, 1987
  • Strasbourg, France, Musée d'Art Moderne or Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1988
  • Grove of Silence, Vincennes, with Sue Finlay and Nicholas Sloan, Forest of Dean, England, 1988
  • Frechen-Bachem, Germany, Haus Bitz, 1988
  • Preston, England, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, 1989
  • Cologne, Germany, Ungers Private Library, 1990
  • bridge columns, Broomielaw, Glasgow, Scotland, 1990
  • Ovid wall, Aphrodite herm, tree-plaque, capital, with Nicholas Sloan, Luton, England, Stockwood Park, 1991
  • tree-plaque, Hennef, Germany, private garden, 1991
  • Lübeck, Germany, Overbeck-Gesellschaft, 1991
  • Karlsruhe, Germany, Baden State Library, 1991
  • Dudley, England, The Leasowes, 1992
  • Six Milestones, The Hague-Zoetermeer, the Netherlands, 1992
  • Paris, France, private garden, 1993
  • Frankfurt/Main, Germany, Schröder Münchmeyer Hengst & Co, 1994
  • stone bench, stone plinth, three plaques. pergola, tree-plaque, others, Grevenbroich, Germany, 1995, named: Ian-Hamilton-Finlay-Park 2014
  • Foxgloves, with Peter Coates, Durham, UK, Botanic Gardens, 1996
  • Shell Research Centre Thornton grounds, Finlay and Pia Simig with or for Latz+Partner, Chester, UK, 1997–
  • paving, eight benches, tree plaque, with Peter Coates, Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London, UK, 1997
  • Fleur de l'Air, with Pia Simig, Peter Coates, Volkmar Herre, Harry Gilonis, John Dixon Hunt, Wild Hawthorn Press, Provence, France, 1997–2003
  • Et In Arcadia Ego, with Peter Coates for Stroom, The Hague, the Netherlands, 1998 (see Fashion, art, society in Camouflage)
  • The Present Order, with Peter Coates, for Barcelona City Council, supported by the British Council, Barcelona, Spain, Park Güell, 1999
  • Petrarch in Island of Sculptures, Pontevedra, Galicia, 1999
  • with Peter Coates, Hamburg, Germany, 1999
  • benches, with Peter Coates, Erfurt, Germany, Erfurt Federal Labour Court, 1999
  • Cythera, with Peter Coates, Lanarkshire, Scotland, Hamilton Palace grounds, 2000
  • Six Definitions, Dean Gallery grounds, Edinburgh, Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, 2001
  • Ripple with Peter Coates, Luxembourg, Casino Luxembourg, 2001 or 2002
  • with Peter Coates, Neanderthal, Germany, 2002
  • with Peter Coates, Carrara, Italy, Carrara International Biennale, 2002
  • Basel, Switzerland, with Peter Coates, 2003
  • with Peter Coates, St. Gallan, Switzerland, private residence, 2004
  • seven Idylls, Dean Gallery allotments, Edinburgh, Scotland, Dean Gallery Allotments Association, 2005
  • L'Idylle des Cerises with Pia Maria Simig (with Peter Coates), Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, preparatory drawings and sculpture, 2005

Books by Finlay

  • Original: 1960 Migrant Press, 1961 Wild Hawthorn Press, 1961 Wild Flounder Press, 1969 Fulcrum Press, 1995 or 1996 or 1997 Polygon .

==Bibliography==<!--

  • Weilacher, Udo: "Poetry in Nature Unredeemed – Ian Hamilton Finlay" (Interview) in: Weilacher, Udo: Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art. Basel Berlin Boston 1999 -->
  • Original: 1960 Migrant Press, 1961 Wild Hawthorn Press, 1961 Wild Flounder Press, 1969 Fulcrum Press, 1995 or 1996 or 1997 Polygon
  • Original: 1994 Chapman Publishing
  • Original: 1992 MIT Press or <!-- first contributer mentioned London -->

See also

  • Monostich
  • Concrete poetry

References

Sources

  • Eyres, Patrick (1982), The Third Reich Revisited, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 10, Autumn 1982, pp.&nbsp;23 – 27,
  • Craig, Cairns (2010). "Finlay, Ian Hamilton", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, accessed 29 September 2016. .
  • Ian Hamilton Finlay papers, 1948–1992, finding aid, Getty Research Institute.
  • Finding aid to Ian Hamilton Finlay manuscripts at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.