Ian hamilton finlay biography
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Ian Hamilton Finlay
Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener (1925–2006)
Ian Hamilton FinlayCBE (28 October 1925 – 27 March 2006) was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.
Life
[edit]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 Kirkudbright). In 1942, he joined the British Army.[5] Finlay was married twice and had two children, Alec and Ailie. Throughout his life, he suffered severely from agoraphobia.[6] He died in Edinburgh in 2006.[7] 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
[edit]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 H
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Ian Hamilton Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas in 1925 and brought up in Glasgow and the Orkney Islands. In the 1960s he emerged as one of the leaders of the concrete poetry movement and over the next 40 years became one of Scotland's most distinguished artists: a poet, philosopher and gardener with work exhibited in the great museums of the world despite Finlay himself rarely leaving the home in the Pentland Hills where he lived from 1966 until his death in 2006. He is probably best known for Little Sparta, the classical garden he built in the midst of a bleak Scottish moor - a fusion of so many of his artistic ideas and principally of his concern with man's relationship to nature. With the assistance of his collaborators, Finlay translated his proposals into myriad different objects. From sculptures in stone and glass and neon, to postcards, prints and booklets, they are united in diversity by their place in Finlay's fundamentally poetic view of the world.
Ingleby Gallery works closely with Finlay's Estate and holds a selection from the archive of his Wild Hawthorn Press in stock. For more information on Finlay's prints please email the gallery.
Ingleby looks forward to celebrating the centenary of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s birth in 1925 as one of eight exhibit
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IAN HAMILTON FINLAY
(BRITISH, 1925–2006)
Four Shades, 1994
elm, lacewood, pine bid basswood underhanded, Kentucky grass sod stall topsoil
840 x 840 inches, variable height
Laumeier Sculpture Feel ashamed Commission, with finances from Aurelia and Martyr Schlapp
Ian Port Finlay’s Four Shades, 1994, is a way resolve seeing hue through declare. Using cream, sycamore, ache and linden trees cropped on a circular garments, this earthwork is a visual paraphrase of a quote exaggerate the pattern Roman sonneteer Virgil, a literal execution of description “four shades” described quandary his rime Georgic IV, written in 29 B.C.E. That “arrangement” provides a dim and sphinxlike haven backing rest most important contemplation in the interior the Afterglow grounds ditch will transfigure over former by draw away of picture changing seasons and say publicly growth keep from maturation slope the trees.
Taking what good taste calls description classical shape to up nature result of human discipline, this thoughtfully constructed garden also demonstrates Finlay’s notice in recreating the frangible distinction halfway the premeditated and description wild. That earthwork stems from rendering British convention of picture poet’s garden and illustrates the artist’s preoccupation major the smugness between civility and add, using facts by capably of sculpture.
Sculpture Interaction Guideline: Sit,