Finlay, Ian Hamilton

Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener. Much of his work on paper was issued through his own Wild Hawthorne Press, which he founded in 1964.

From the description of Collection of printed material from Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977-1990. (University of Illinois-Chicago Library). WorldCat record id: 301555191

Scottish concrete poet and garden designer, born 1925.

From the description of Thonier : watercolor print, nd. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122447587

From the description of Blue flower : color print, nd. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122384116

From the description of Pastoral : silkscreen, 1996. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122565779

Scottish poet and designer.

From the description of Ian Hamilton Finlay papers, ca. 1948-1993 (bulk, 1967-1992). (Getty Research Institute). WorldCat record id: 80745200

Ian Hamilton Finlay (b. 1925) is a Scottish sculptor, graphic artist and poet. Ruth and Marvin Sackner assembled this collection.

From the guide to the Collection of printed material from Wild Hawthorn Press, ca. 1960-1990., (Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University)

Born in the Bahamas in 1925, Finlay has spent most of his life in Scotland. He is author of numerous books, of short stories as well as poetry; a painter; and a publisher in the Wild Hawthorne Press, Edinburgh, from 1961-1966. His "concrete poetry" has been exhibited in several cities, including London and Edinburgh.

From the description of Ian Hamilton Finlay manuscripts, 1958-1963. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 495526555

No information available.

From the guide to the Ian Hamilton Finlay, 1971, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])

Ian Hamilton Finlay, poet and artist, was born in Nassau and reared in Scotland. In the 1960's, he became known as the leading British exponent of concrete poetry. Finlay uses inscription and landscape gardening as well as language to convey his poetic ideas. Selected ponds (1976) is a good example of this mixture of artistic media. His work is represented in the Tate Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

From the description of Correspondence, 1969-1975. (Temple University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 122417812

Concrete Poetry, a movement developed in the 1950s that reached its peak in the 1960s, emphasized the visual aspects of words and examined the relationship between visual form and literary content. It traces its origins to the traditions of visual poetry, found in the experimental works of Stephane Mallarmé, Lewis Carroll, and Ezra Pound. The movement was initiated in 1953 by the Swiss poet Eugen Gomringer, who published a book of poems inspired by the earlier concrete painting movement. That same year, three poets in Brazil formed a group known as Noigandres to publish works in a style they termed Poesia Concreta. Working independently, the Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström developed his own Concrete Poetry manifesto in 1953. By 1962, Concrete Poetry was an established artistic movement, and it attracted the attention of the Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay. Having recently established the Wild Hawthorn Press to produce the works of contemporary artists, Finlay was soon using his publications to showcase his own explorations of the new form. Finlay became a major promoter of the genre, organizing and participating in numerous exhibitions. Ian Hamilton Finlay was born in 1925 in the Bahamas, but his family returned to Scotland while he was a child. After serving in the army towards the end of World War II, he began writing short stories and poetry, with his first published work coming in 1958. With his friend Jessie McGuffie, he founded the Wild Hawthorn Press in 1961, through which he published the periodical "Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.", which was a showcase for Concrete Poetry. In the mid-1960s, Finlay and his wife settled on a country estate outside Edinburgh called Stonypath, where he began building a garden that incorporated both his poetry and sculpture. The garden, known as Little Sparta, became very popular in the 1980s, largely through Finlay's protracted, and well publicized, battles with the Scottish Arts Council.

From the description of Concrete Poetry Collection, 1960-1973. (University of California, Santa Barbara). WorldCat record id: 231628325

Poet.

From the description of Papers, 1965-1973. (Indiana University). WorldCat record id: 50863247

From the description of Papers, 1953-1972. (Indiana University). WorldCat record id: 36585577

History/Biography

Concrete Poetry, a movement developed in the 1950s that reached its peak in the 1960s, emphasized the visual aspects of words and examined the relationship between visual form and literary content. Art critic William Feaver described it as a "blend of words used for their literal meanings and words used for their face value or visual appearance." It traces its origins to the traditions of visual poetry, found in the experimental works of Stephane Mallarmé, Lewis Carroll, and Ezra Pound. Adopted by members of the literary avant-garde of the mid-twentieth century, Concrete Poetry became the first truly international poetry movement.

The movement was initiated in 1953 by the Swiss poet Eugen Gomringer, who published a book of poems inspired by the earlier concrete painting movement. That same year, three poets in Brazil, Haraldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, and Décio Pignatari, formed a group known as Noigandres to publish works in a style they termed Poesia Concreta. Working independently, the Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström developed his own Concrete Poetry manifesto in 1953, but unfortunately, it was neither translated nor widely disseminated for many years. He had been inspired by experiments in musique concrète produced by the French sound engineer Pierre Schaeffer.

By 1962, Concrete Poetry was an established artistic movement, and it attracted the attention of the Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay. Having recently established the Wild Hawthorn Press to produce the works of contemporary artists, Finlay was soon using his publications to showcase his own explorations of the new form. Having corresponded with both Gomringer and the Noigandres group, Finlay became a major promoter of the genre, organizing and participating in numerous exhibitions.

Ian Hamilton Finley was born in 1925 in the Bahamas, but his family returned to Scotland while he was a child. His formal education ended at the outbreak of World War II, when his family was relocated to the remote Orkney Islands. After serving in the army towards the end of the war, he began writing short stories and poetry, with his first published work coming in 1958. With his friend Jessie McGuffie, he founded the Wild Hawthorn Press in 1961, through which he published the periodical Poor. Old. Tired. Horse., which was a showcase for Concrete Poetry. In the mid-1960s, Finlay and his wife settled on a country estate outside Edinburgh called Stonypath, where he began building a garden that incorporated both his poetry and sculpture. The garden, known as Little Sparta, became very popular in the 1980s, largely through Finley's protracted - and well-publicized - battles with the Scottish Arts Council.

From the guide to the Concrete Poetry Collection, 1960-1973, (University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Department of Special Collections)

Biographical/Historical Note

Ian Hamilton Finlay is a Scottish artist best known for his concrete poetry, his gardens which incorporate poetry and sculpture, and his penchant for controversy. He was born in 1925 in the Bahamas. His family returned to Scotland when he was a child and he was, briefly, educated there. He left school at 13, and served in the army (RASC) beginning in 1942. After WWII, Finlay began to write short stories and poetry. His first publication was The Sea-Bed and Other Stories (1958); his first book of poems, Dancers Inherit the Party, was published in 1960 (republished by the Fulcrum Press in 1969).

In 1961 Finlay founded the Wild Hawthorne Press (with Jessie McGuffie). The press published contemporary artists, although it increasingly concentrated on the work of Finlay, in innovative and kinetic forms. In 1962 Finlay started the periodical, Poor. Old. Tired. Horse . Edited by Finlay, the title comprised 25 issues when it ended in 1968.

It was during the early 1960s that Finlay turned from rhymed poetry to concrete poetry. 1963 marked the publication of his first collection of concrete poems, Rapel, and his first poem/card, Standing Poem I . He participated in the First International Exhibition of Concrete and Kinetic Poetry, held in Cambridge in 1964, and the ICA's exhibit, Between Poetry and Painting, in 1965.

In 1966 Ian and Sue Finlay settled at Stonypath (in the southern uplands of Scotland) and began building their famous garden. They turned one of the buildings on their ca. 4 acre site into a gallery. This subsequently became the Garden Temple, and the source of Finlay's battles with the Strathclyde Region Council when they refused to give him a rate exemption for a religious building. Finlay's protracted skirmishes with the Scottish Arts Council began in 1978 and became known as the Little Spartan War. (Stonypath was renamed Little Sparta.) This "war" included several "battles" between the SAC and the group of Finlay supporters known as the Saint-Just Vigilantes. These and other battles have been memorialized in Finlay's printed and sculptural works. Finlay was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1985.

From the guide to the Ian Hamilton Finlay papers, 1948-1992, (Getty Research Institute)

Ian Hamilton Finlay, poet and artist, was born October 28, 1925 in Nassau, Bahamas to James and Annie Finlay. At age six he moved to Scotland for boarding school, and would remain there for most of his life. After serving in the Royal Army Corps during World War II, Finlay married Marion Fletcher and began working as a shepherd in the 1950s. During this period, Finlay began to write short stories and poetry.

During the 1960s, Finlay became involved in the concrete poetry movement, and it is for his output during this period that Finlay first gained wide recognition. Concrete poetry is best described as an aesthetic movement in poetry, in which the visual and phonetic perception of language is explored, rather than exclusively considering the meanings of words. As a concrete poet, Finlay challenged contemporary critics to reconsider their conception of poetic language, and the intersection between language and visual arts. Although few British critics responded positively to Finlay’s poetry, he was celebrated in Germany and the United States.

Finlay was married for a second time in 1964 to Sue MacDonald-Lockhart, with whom he had two children, Alec and Allie. By the late 1960s, Finlay had begun to explore conceptual art more generally. When Finlay and his family moved to a farm in Dunsyre, near Edinburgh, he began working on his most ambitious project: an intricately designed “garden poem” 20 years in the making.

Finlay died in Edinburgh on March 27, 2006.

From the guide to the Poetry and Correspondence, 1964-1967, (University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library Department of Special Collections)

An influential proponent of concrete poetry, Finlay moved from solely literary forms of poetry, drama, and short stories in the 1950's to kinetic forms of poetry expressed in stone, wood, neon and other tangible structures in the 1960's. Boats and boating, sails and the sea were used by Finlay to suggest poetic ideas in many of his poems such as Archangel of Archangel, Boatyard, Four Sails, The Four Seasons..., Homage to Gomringer, Little Drummer boy, The Old Nobby, Seashells, Sepia Barge and others. Sundials were used in like manner as in Arcadian Sundials, Biggar Sundial, and Land/Sea Indoor Sundial. Letters exchanged with woodcarvers, stone carvers, photographers, typographers, printers, and artists give the instructions for the creation of many of his works. A book of poems, Poems to See and Hear, was prepared especially to introduce to children Finlay's poetic concepts. During 1968 to 1971 there was much work by Films of Scotland in the preparation of the films Ocean Stripe 5 and KY 365 based on Finlay's life and poetry.

Following an agreement with the Fulcrum Press in June 1968 to publish an edition of The Dancers Inherit the Party, a controversy developed over the next several years concerning the first appearance of the work. This involved lengthy correspondence with solicitors, members of parliament, librarians, staffs of magazines, newspapers, arts councils, and literary organizations as well as close friends and poets.

From the guide to the Finlay mss., 1953-1972, (Lilly Library (Indiana University, Bloomington))

An influential proponent of concrete poetry, Finlay moved from solely literary forms of poetry, drama, and short stories in the 1950's to kinetic forms of poetry expressed in stone, wood, neon and other tangible structures in the 1960's. Boats and boating, sails and the sea were used by Finlay to suggest poetic ideas in many of his poems such as Archangel of Archangel, Boatyard, Four Sails, The Four Seasons..., Homage to Gomringer, Little Drummer boy, The Old Nobby, Seashells, Sepia Barge and others. Sundials were used in like manner as in Arcadian Sundials, Biggar Sundial, and Land/Sea Indoor Sundial. Letters exchanged with woodcarvers, stone carvers, photographers, typographers, printers, and artists give the instructions for the creation of many of his works. A book of poems, Poems to See and Hear, was prepared especially to introduce to children Finlay's poetic concepts. During 1968 to 1971 there was much work by Films of Scotland in the preparation of the films Ocean Stripe 5 and KY 365 based on Finlay's life and poetry.

Following an agreement with the Fulcrum Press in June 1968 to publish an edition of The Dancers Inherit the Party, a controversy developed over the next several years concerning the first appearance of the work. This involved lengthy correspondence with solicitors, members of parliament, librarians, staffs of magazines, newspapers, arts councils, and literary organizations as well as close friends and poets.

From the guide to the Finlay mss. II, 1965-1973, (Lilly Library (Indiana University, Bloomington))