Ian Hamilton Finlay
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About
A philosopher, sculptor and poet, Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925–2006) reinvigorated the classical tradition in a body of work that encompasses a variety of creative forms to celebrate the sustaining power of words. His diverse production encompassed a variety of creative forms including prints, poems, books, inscriptions, neons, sculptures, permanent installations and landscape design. The purest kind of conceptual artist, Finlay was sensitive to the formalist concerns (colour, shape, scale, texture, composition) of literary and artistic modernism. For almost forty years, he formed his works using philosophical texts, myths, characters and images from the past to make enigmatic juxtapositions and in so doing new thoughts. Finlay's adept use of syntax and narrative configuration weaved refined distinctions with a lyrical philosophy. His skill lay in his unique ability to break down complex ideas into coherent single words and short phrases, infused with Finlay's characteristic wit and, often, wry humour.
In 1961 he founded the Wild Hawthorn Press with Jessie McGuffie and within a few years had established himself internationally as Britain's foremost concrete poet. His publications continue to play an important role in the dissemination of his work as a visual artist. As a sculptor, he worked collaboratively in a wide range of materials, having his concepts executed as stone-carvings, as constructed objects and neon lighting. From the mid-1960s Finlay lived and worked at Stonypath, south-west of Edinburgh, where he transformed the surrounding rural acres into a unique garden and life's work: Little Sparta. Ian Hamilton Finlay died 27 March 2006, aged 80.
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Biography
Born in 1925 in Nassau, Bahamas, Ian Hamilton Finlay was a philosopher, sculptor and poet who reinvigorated the classical tradition in his art. Finlay’s diverse production encompassed a variety of creative forms including prints, poems, books, inscriptions, neons, sculptures, permanent installations and landscape design, all celebrating the sustaining power of words. The purest kind of conceptual artist, Finlay was sensitive to the formalist concerns (colour, shape, scale, texture, composition) of literary and artistic modernism. In 1961 he founded Wild Hawthorn Press with Jessie McGuffie, mainly to introduce contemporary artists to Scotland, and which over the years came to concentrate exclusively on Finlay’s printed works. His lifetime’s work, the garden at Little Sparta, Stonypath, Scotland, begun in 1966, most fully realises the movement of words and language into the world. Ian Hamilton Finlay died 27 March 2006, aged 80.
Recent solo exhibitions include The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, UK (2025); Hill Art Foundation, New York, USA (2024); City Arts Centre, Edinburgh, UK (2021); St Pauls Cathedral, London, UK (2016) and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK (2016).
Finlay’s work is in permanent collections including the British Museum, London; Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St Louis, USA; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Tate, London and Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
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News
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Ian Hamilton Finlay: Fragments is reviewed in Sculpture Magazine
May 12, 2025'This much-deserved centenary celebration demonstrates the continued relevance of his questioning work.'Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Republic is The Week in Art’s Work of the Week
May 6, 2025For The Art Newspaper’s The Week in Art podcast, Ben Luke spoke to Stephen Bann about this sculptural work, currently on view at the gallery...Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s son Alec Finlay on the centenary of his father's birth in The World of Interiors
April 23, 2025'He experienced language as a Heraclitan and oracular medium. To him, the poem was an exemplary device that had a gift for revealing the metamorphoses words contain.'Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta featured in the Financial Times
April 17, 2025'As a whole, Little Sparta is “like a cryptic crossword puzzle. It’s a place that allows you to think.”'Read More -
The Observer reviews Ian Hamilton Finlay at the National Galleries of Scotland
March 23, 2025★★★★ 'His is an art of distillation, juxtaposition, thrift and contemplation... Finlay understood as few other artists the emotional power of letters cutting into form, shape and colour.'Read More -
Exhibitions celebrating the centenary of Ian Hamilton Finlay feature in The Times Scotland
March 1, 2025'...Finlay saw himself as a disruptor, someone who challenged the establishment and picked quarrels with it, whenever he felt its power was being misused.'Read More -
A centenary display of works by Ian Hamilton Finlay at National Galleries of Scotland
February 24, 2025On view at Modern Two from 8 March–26 May 2025, the display includes sculptures, prints and a room-size installation as well as extensive archival material....Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay features in Landscape and Imagination: From Gardens to Land Art at Compton Verney
March 2, 2024The exhibition (21 March–16 June 2024) explores the beauty of nature, reimagined and reinterpreted through the hands of artists and landscape designers who throughout history...Read More -
Marine: Ian Hamilton Finlay at City Art Centre, Edinburgh
May 22, 2021This major exhibition (22 May–3 October 2021) focuses on the maritime theme in Finlay’s work. It was a central element of his art, and one...Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay is featured in the UCL exhibition Witnessing Terror: French Revolutionary Prints
January 6, 2020The exhibition (14 January–12 June 2020) showcases UCL Art Museum’s unique holdings of prints related to the French Revolution and draws out the contemporary relevance...Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay in Machines à Penser at Fondazione Prada, Venice
May 24, 2018Curated by Dieter Roelstraete, the exhibition (26 May–25 November 2018) explores the correlation between conditions of exile, escape and retreat and physical or mental places...Read More -
An Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition and talk are a focal point of this year’s Ilkley Literature Festival
August 1, 2017The exhibition (30 September 2017), Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Visual Poetry, at Manor House, features sculptures and inscriptions, prints, letters and images drawn from the collection...Read More -
Hyperallergic writes about Concrete Poetry: Words and Sounds in Graphic Space, featuring Ian Hamilton Finlay
June 3, 2017An Eye for Words: Concrete Poets at the Getty Concrete Poetry focuses on the purists of the movement, particularly the Brazilian Augusto de Campos, the...Read More -
Jonny Bruce writes about Ian Hamilton Finlay's Little Sparta, in the Financial Times
March 28, 2017The artist-gardeners who aim to plant a subversive message. By Jonny Bruce Finlay’s garden at Stonypath, outside Edinburgh, has become a place of pilgrimage for...Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay in Concrete Poetry: Words and Sounds in Graphic Space at Getty Research Institute
March 23, 201728 March - 30 July 2017 Drawn principally from the Getty Research Institute's collection of prints, artists' books, journals, and manuscripts documenting the international concrete...Read More -
Grayson Perry and Ian Hamilton Finlay in Creating the Countryside at Compton Verney
March 9, 2017Creating the Countryside: Thomas Gainsborough to Today Sat 18 March 2017 – Sun 18 June 2017 , 11.00am – 5.00pm. Compton Verney’s 2017 season will...Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay at St Paul's Cathedral
December 12, 2016New art installation for Advent and Christmastide at St Paul's Cathedral The star in its stable of light A work by Ian Hamilton Finlay has...Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Neoclassicism and Revolution at Pallant House Gallery
October 24, 2016A display of prints and multiples (22 October 2016 - 19 February 2017) by the Scottish artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006), best known...Read More -
Just out: Protest publication
September 23, 2016This publication accompanies Protest at Victoria Miro, 23 September - 5 November 2016, an exhibition of historical and contemporary works by artists concerned with the...Read More -
Power to... the art of protest, as featured in The Observer
September 23, 2016Politically engaged art is thriving again, finding new ways to challenge in a complex digital world. We look at the rich history of protest art...Read More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay | 1789 1794 reviewed in Artforum
October 1, 2015Ian Hamilton Finlay. By Richard Taws. The French Revolution was a recurrent theme in Ian Hamilton Finlay’s protean career as a poet, Conceptual artist, sculptor,...Read More
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Books
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Gallery Exhibitions
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Ian Hamilton Finlay: Fragments
30 Apr – 24 May 2025 London Gallery IFragments is both a major new book and eight exhibitions that will take place internationally during May 2025 in Basel, Brescia, Edinburgh, Hamburg, London, New York, Palma de Mallorca and Vienna, curated and edited by Pia Maria Simig.Learn More -
Protest
23 Sep – 5 Nov 2016 London Gallery IDoug Aitken, Jules de Balincourt, Vlassis Caniaris, Elmgreen & Dragset, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Christian Holstad, Isaac Julien, Yayoi Kusama, Wangechi Mutu, Alice Neel, Chris Ofili, Richard Prince, Sarah Sze, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Kara Walker.Learn More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: 1789 1794
10 Jun – 31 Jul 2015 London Gallery IAn exhibition of the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) marking the 90th anniversary of the artist's birth. A philosopher, sculptor, poet and gardener, Finlay drew on and reinvigorated the...Learn More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Definitions
5 May – 1 Jun 2011 London Gallery IVictoria Miro Gallery is delighted to present a unique juxtaposition of Ian Hamilton Finlay's sculpture and a series of text works, termed Definitions . These Definitions present Finlay's own interpretations...Learn More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: The Sonnet is a Sewing-Machine for the Monostich
30 Mar – 12 May 2007 London Gallery IThe Sonnet is a Sewing-Machine for the Monostich is the largest ever presentation of Finlay's rarely seen neon works, which date back to the early seventies and run parallel to...Learn More -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Idylls and Interventions
27 Jun – 2 Aug 2003 London Gallery IIdylls and Interventions brings together a number of Finlay's seminal series of prints along with a major new work and recent sculptures. The exhibition is conceived by Ian Hamilton Finlay...Learn More -
Raw
7 May – 30 Jun 2000 London Gallery IYayoi Kusama. Francesca Woodman, Robin Lowe, Adriana Varejão, Isaac Julien, Doug Aitken, Abigail Lane, Hadrian Pigott, Brad Lochore, Cecily Brown, Chris Ofili, Andreas Gursky, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Inez van Lamsweerde,...Learn More -
Heads Will Roll
14 Sep – 9 Oct 1998 Victoria Miro Cork StreetIan Hamilton Finlay, Robin Lowe, Dawn Mellor, Lars Nilson, Chris Ofili, Keir Smith -
Ian Hamilton Finlay
19 May – 19 Jun 1998 Victoria Miro Cork StreetThis exhibition of benches by Ian Hamilton Finlay coincides with the inauguration of a series of permanently placed sculptures – eight benches, a tree plaque and a large circular inscription of the names of trees found in Kensington Gardens – at the Serpentine Gallery in London. -
Ian Hamilton Finlay
31 Oct – 2 Dec 1995 Victoria Miro Cork Street -
Temples
5 – 28 Jul 1995 Victoria Miro Cork StreetJuren Albrecht, Bernd & Hiller Becher, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gursky, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Alex Hartley, Keir Smith, Stephen Willats -
Ian Hamilton Finlay and Pia Maria Simig
29 Jun – 29 Jul 1994 Victoria Miro Cork Street -
Ian Hamilton Finlay, with Annet Stirling – 10 Maquettes for Neo-Classical Structures
14 Feb – 3 Apr 1992 Victoria Miro Cork StreetIan Hamilton Finlay with Annet Stirling - 10 Maquettes for Neo-Classical Structures. -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Wartime Garden
17 Oct – 21 Dec 1991 Victoria Miro Cork Street -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Idylls
15 May – 30 Jun 1990 Victoria Miro Cork Street -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Works 1966–1986
14 Jul – 29 Aug 1987 Victoria Miro Cork Street -
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Marat Assassiné Vitruvius/Augustus-Vitruvius/Robespierre Ideological Accessories
29 May – 5 Jul 1986 Victoria Miro Cork Street
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