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Ian Hamilton Finlay

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Ian Hamilton Finlay
Born 28 October, 1925
Nassau, Bahamas
Died 27 March, 2006
Edinburgh, Scotland
Field art, poetry, concrete poetry, gardens, sculpture, publishing
Famous works

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

Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas of Scottish parents. He was educated in Scotland. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated to the Orkney Islands. In 1942 he joined the British Army.

Ian Hamilton Finlay, Star / Steer, 1966, at Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

At the end of the war, Finlay worked as a shepherd, before beginning to write short stories and poems. He published books including The Sea Bed and Other Stories (1958) and The Dancers Inherit the Party (1960) (which was included in its entirety in a New Directions annual a few years later), and some of his work was broadcast by the BBC.

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. Eventually he began to inscribe his poems into stone, incorporating these sculptures into the natural environment.

This kind of environmental poetry features in his garden "Little Sparta" in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, where he lived. The five-acre garden also includes more conventional sculptures and temple-like buildings as well as plants.

In December 2004, 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. 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 the garden for the nation by raising enough to pay for an ongoing maintenance fund. Ian Appleton, Stephen Bann, Stephen Blackmore, Susan Daniel-McElroy, Patrick Eyres, Richard Ingleby, Ian Kennedy, Magnus Linklater, Victoria Miro, Nicholas Serota, Jessie Sheeler, Pia Simig and Ann Uppington are trustees.

Image:Ian Hamilton Finlay.jpg

His work is notable for a number of recurring themes: a penchant for classical writers (especially Virgil); a concern with fishing and the sea; an interest in the French Revolution; and a continual revisiting of World War II. His work can be austere, but it is also at times witty, or even darkly whimsical.

One of the few gardens outside Scotland to permanently display his work is the Improvement Garden in Stockwood Park, Luton.

Finlay was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1985. Finlay 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. Awarded in the Queen's New Year's Honours list in 2002, Finlay was a CBE.

Finlay was married twice and had two children. He passed away in Edinburgh.

Contents

[edit] Printed works and images online

[edit] Sculptures and gardens

Partial list from two sources<ref name=Works> Finlay, Ian Hamilton (1995). Zdenek Felix & Pia Simig (eds.).: Works in Europe 1972-1995 Werke in Europa, Werner Hannappel (photographer), Cantz Verlag. ISBN 3-89322-749-0.</ref><ref name=Coates> Peter Coates (undated). Biography: Collaborations with Ian Hamilton Finlay. Retrieved on 2006-11-16.</ref>

  • anteboreum, Yorkshire, England, private garden
  • sundial, Bonn, Germany, British Embassy, 1979
  • a basket of lemons, a plough of the Roman sort, two oval plaques, Pistoia, Italy, Villa Celle, 1984
  • Strasbourg, France, Musée d'Art Moderne or Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1988
  • Frechen-Bahem, Germany, Haus Bitz, 1988
  • tree-plaque, Hennef, Germany, private garden, 1991
  • stone bench, stone plinth, three plaques. pergola, tree-plaque, others, Grevenbroich, Germany, Schlosspark, 1995
  • Foxgloves, with Peter Coates, Durham, UK, Botanical Gardens, 1996
  • benches, with Peter Coates, Erfurt, Germany, Erfurt Federal Labour Court, 1999
  • with Peter Coates, Carrara, Italy, Carrara International Biennale, 2002
  • Basel, Switzerland, with Peter Coates, 2003
  • with Peter Coates, St. Gallan, Switzerland, private residence, 2004

[edit] Collaborators

Partial list from two sources<ref name=WHP> Finlay, Ian Hamilton (2006). Printed works. Wild Hawthorn Press. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.</ref><ref name=Tate> Finlay, Ian Hamilton (2006). Tate Collection. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.</ref>

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  • Harvey Dwight
  • Howard Eaglestone
  • Julie Farthing
  • Zdenek Felix
  • Martin Fidler
  • Jud Fine
  • Alec Finlay
  • Sue Finlay
  • Malcolm Fraser
  • John Furnival
  • Philip Gallo
  • Ian Gardner
  • Robin Gillanders
  • Harry Gilonis
  • Sydney McK. Glen
  • Peter Grant
  • Martyn Greenhalgh
  • Andrew Griffiths
  • Pip Hall
  • Werner Hannappel
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  • Peter Lyle
  • John Borg Manduca
  • Eric Marland
  • Neil McLeish
  • Stuart Mills
  • Gordon Munro
  • Jim Nicholson
  • George Oliver
  • David Paterson
  • Ian Procktor
  • John R. Nash
  • Stephen Raw
  • Antonia Reeve
  • Graham Rich
  • Herbert Rosenthal
  • Carlo Rossi
  • Ivy Sky Rutzky
  • Annika Sandell
  • Jessie Sheeler
  • Margot Sandeman
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  • Marco Schibig
  • Pia Maria Simig
  • Nicholas Sloan
  • Vic Smeed
  • Jennie Spiers
  • Ann Stevenson
  • Iain Stewart
  • Mark Stewart
  • Annet Stirling
  • Alexander Stoddart
  • Diane Tammes
  • C. Tissiman
  • Karl Torok
  • Andrew Townsend
  • Caroline Webb
  • Eva Maria Weinmayer
  • Andrew Whittle
  • Cornelia Wieg
  • Gloria Wilson
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[edit] Bibliography

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  • Finlay, Ian Hamilton<ref name=iblilly> 
The Trustees of Indiana University (undated). IU Lilly Library. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.</ref><ref name=IG>
Ingleby Gallery (undated). Bookshop and Editions. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.</ref> [1960 Migrant Press, 1961 Wild Hawthorn Press, 1961 Wild Flounder Press, 1969 Fulcrum Press, 1995 or 1996 or 1997 Polygon ISBN 0-7486-6207-3] (September or October 2004). Ken Cockburn & Lilias Fraser (eds.): The Dancers Inherit the Party and Glasgow Beasts, An' a Burd. Polygon in association with Scottish Poetry Library. ISBN 1-904598-13-7.
  • Abrioux, Yves [1992 MIT Press EAN 9780262011297 or ISBN 0-262-01129-8] (15 December 2006). Ian Hamilton Finlay. A Visual Primer, N.e.of 2r.e. edition, Reaktion Books. ISBN 0-948462-40-X.
  • Hendry, Joy, Alec Finlay [1994 Chapman Publishing ISBN 0-906772-61-3] (February 1997). Wood Notes Wild: Essays on the Poetry and Art of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Polygon. ISBN 0-7486-6185-9.
  • Finlay, Ian Hamilton (1995). Zdenek Felix & Pia Simig (eds.).: Works in Europe 1972-1995 Werke in Europa, Werner Hannappel (photographer), Cantz Verlag. ISBN 3-89322-749-0.
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  • Weilacher, Udo (September 1999). "Poetry in Nature Unredeemed - Ian Hamilton Finlay" (interview) in Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art, John Dixon Hunt (Foreword), Birkhauser. ISBN 3-7643-6119-0.
  • Lubbock, Tom (August 2002). Susan Daniel-McElroy (ed.).: Ian Hamilton Finlay: Maritime Works. Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-9539924-5-4.
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[edit] References and notes

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  • Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society (2006). Awards. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
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[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Ian Hamilton Finlay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener
DATE OF BIRTH 28 October, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Nassau, Bahamas
DATE OF DEATH 27 March, 2006
PLACE OF DEATH Edinburgh, Scotland
de:Ian Hamilton Finlay
Retrieved from "http://en.wikivisual.com/index.php/Ian_Hamilton_Finlay"
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