Ian hamilton finlay biography of donald

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Nationality: British. Born: Nassau, Bahamas, 28 October 1925. Left school at age 13. Family: Married Susan Finlay; one children. Career: Concrete Poetry professed at Axiom Gallery, London, 1968, Scottish National Gallery of Current Art, Edinburgh, 1972, National Shipping Museum, Greenwich, 1973, Southampton Special Gallery, 1976, Graeme Murray Drift, Edinburgh, 1976, Kettle's Yard, University, 1977, Serpentine Gallery, London, 1977, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 1990; Sundials: University of Kent, Town, in Biggar, Lanarkshire, Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh; Poems designed hold up Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart.

Reviser, Poor. Old. Tired. Horse, Dunsyre, Lanarkshire, 1962–67; publisher, with Charge Finlay, Wild Hawthorn Press, Capital, 1961–66, Easter Ross, 1966, dowel since 1969 Dunsyre, Lanarkshire. Awards: Scottish Arts Council bursary, 1966, 1967, 1968; Atlantic-Richfield award (USA), 1968. Address: Stonypath, Dunsyre, Carnwath, Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Publications

Poetry

The Dancers Inherit influence Party. Worcester, Migrant Press, 1960.

Glasgow Beasts, an a Burd. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1961.

Concertina. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1962.

Rapel. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1963.

Canal Vein dash Series 3 and 4. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1964.

Telegrams get out of My Windmill. Edinburgh, Wild Haw Press, 1964.

Ocean Stripe Series 2 to 5. Edinburgh, Wild Shrub Press, 1965–67.

Cythera. Edinburgh, Wild Bush Press, 1965.

Autumn Poem. Edinburgh, Vigorous Hawthorn Press, 1966.

6 Small Pears for Eugen Gomringer. Edinburgh, Strong Hawthorn Press, 1966.

6 Small Songs in 3's. Edinburgh, Wild Bush Press, 1966.

Tea-Leaves and Fishes. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1966.

4 Sails. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1966.

Headlines Eavelines. Corsham, Wiltshire, Openings Plead, 1967.

Stonechats. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Tangible, 1967.

Canal Game. London, Fulcrum Hold sway over, 1967.

The Collected Coaltown of Callange Tri-kai. Newport, Monmouthshire, Screwpacket Control, 1968.

Air Letters. Nottingham, Tarasque Contain, 1968.

The Blue and The Brownness Poems.New York, Atlantic Richfield-Jargon Small, 1968.

After the Russian. Corsham, Wiltshire, Openings Press, 1969.

3/3's. Edinburgh, Fierce Hawthorn Press, 1969.

A Boatyard. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969.

Lanes. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969.

Wave. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1969.

Rhymes mend Lemons. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Quash, 1970.

"Fishing News" News. Edinburgh, Influential Hawthorn Press, 1970.

30 Signatures vertical Silver Catches. Nottingham, Tarasque Impel, 1971.

Poems to Hear and See.New York, Macmillan, 1971.

A Sailor's Calendar. New York, Something Else Press, 1971.

The Olsen Excerpts. Göttingen, Verlag Udo Breger, 1971.

A Memory designate Summer. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Hold sway over, 1971.

From "An Inland Garden." Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1971.

Evening/Sail 2. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1971.

The Weed Boat Masters Ticket, Advance Text (Part Two). Edinburgh, Uncultivated Hawthorn Press, 1971.

Sail/Sundial. Edinburgh, Powerful Hawthorn Press, 1972.

Jibs. Edinburgh, Unbroken Hawthorn Press, 1972.

Honey by rendering Water.Los Angeles, Black Sparrow Corporation, 1973.

Butterflies. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Subject to, 1973.

A Family. Edinburgh, Wild Bush Press, 1973.

Straiks. Edinburgh, Wild Shrub Press, 1973.

Homage to Robert Lax. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.

A Pretty Kettle of Fish. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.

Silhouettes. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.

Exercise X. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1974.

So You Want to Be practised Panzer Leader. Edinburgh, Wild Haw Press, 1975.

Airs Waters Graces. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975.

The Strong Hawthorn Wonder Book of Boats. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975.

A Mast of Hankies. Edinburgh, Uncultivated Hawthorn Press, 1975.

The Axis. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975.

Trombone Carrier. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1975.

Homage to Watteau. Edinburgh, Wild Shrub Press, 1975.

Three Sundials. Exeter, Rougemont Press, 1975.

Imitations, Variations, Reflections, Copies. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1976.

The Wild Hawthorn Art Test. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977.

Heroic Emblems. Calais, Vermont, Z Press, 1977.

The Boy's Alphabet Book. Toronto, Mentor House Press, 1977.

The Wartime Garden. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977.

Trailblazers. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1978.

Homage to Poussin. Edinburgh, Wild Shrub Press, 1978.

Peterhead Fragments. Edinburgh, Fierce Hawthorn Press, 1979.

"SS." Edinburgh, Savage Hawthorn Press, 1979.

Dzaezl. Edinburgh, Indigenous Hawthorn Press, 1979.

Woods and Seas. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1979.

Two Billows. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Squeeze, 1979.

Romances, Emblems, Enigmas. Edinburgh, Indigenous Hawthorn Press, 1981.

A Litany, Trim Requiem. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Fathom, 1981.

2 Epicurean Poems and sting Epicurean Paradox. Edinburgh, Wild Haw Press, 1981.

The Anaximander Fragment. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981.

An More Classical Dictionary. Edinburgh, Wild Bush Press, 1981.

3 Developments. Edinburgh, Unbroken Hawthorn Press, 1982.

Little Sermons Series: Cherries. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Contain, 1982.

The Mailed Pinkie, with Metropolis Hinks.

Alsbach, West Germany, Verlaggalerie Leaman, 1982.

Midway 3. Edinburgh, Unbroken Hawthorn Press, 1982.

A Mixed Exhibition. Mission, British Columbia, Barbarian Press, 1983.

The Errata of Ovid. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983.

Talismans gleam Signifiers; with, Sphere into Cube. Edinburgh, Graeme Murry Gallery, 1984.

A Celebration of the Grove: Proposition for Villa Celle, with Saint Sloan.

N.p., Parrett Press, 1984.

Interpolations in Hegel. Edinburgh, Wild Bush Press, 1984.

A Country Lane swing at Stiles. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Prise open, 1988.

A Shaded Path. Edinburgh, Influential Hawthorn Press, 1988.

Lidylle des Cerises. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988.

A Concise Classical Dictionary. Edinburgh, Indigenous Hawthorn Press, 1988.

A Proposal means Arne. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Small, 1989.

Five Proverbs for Jacobins. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989.

For Psychologist Cutts. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Partnership, 1989.

Sundial. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Overcome, 1989.

A Memory of the '90s: Exquisite Bloater. Edinburgh, Wild Haw Press, 1989.

I Have Seen deviate Death Is a Reaper. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990.

Woodpaths. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990.

Golden Age. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990.

1794. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990.

The Revolution. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Squeeze, 1990.

Mystic. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Withhold, 1990.

Autumn. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Partnership, 1990.

King. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Subdue, 1990.

Sackcloth. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Break open, 1990.

Avenue Studios, Fulham Road: Cherry Pettigrew, Pettigrew Rose. Edinburgh, Undomesticated Hawthorn Press, 1990.

4 Baskets. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990.

Two Adaptations Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990.

Flakes. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990.

3 Spaces. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Stifle, 1990.

Detached Sentences on Friendship. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991.

Jacobin Definitions. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991.

Heraclitean Variations. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Appear, 1991.

The Old Stonypath Hoy. Capital, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991.

For Kalus Werner. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Business, 1991.

Scud. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Contain, 1991.

I Sing for the Muses and Myself. Green River, Vermont, Longhouse, 1991.

A Proposal for a-ok Garden Built on a Slope. Edinburgh, Morning Star, 1991.

Four Monostichs. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992.

Six Milestones: A Proposal for Floriade. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992.

Instruments of Revolution and Other Works. Edinburgh, Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992.

Loaves: After Paul Cezanne. Edinburgh, Undomesticated Hawthorn Press, 1993.

Short Stories

The Sea-Bed and Other Stories. Edinburgh, Alna Press, 1958.

Other

The Bicentennial Proposal: Excellence French War: The War realize the Letter. Toronto, Art Metropole, 1989.

A Wartime Garden. Edinburgh, Graeme Murray, 1990.

Ian Hamilton Finlay & The Wild Hawthorn Press. Capital, Graeme Murray, 1991.

The Poor Fisher by Puvis de Chavannes: Indicative of on a Masterpiece. Edinburgh, Lensman Rice Gallery, 1991.

The Dancers Fall the Party, and Glasgow Beasts. Edinburgh, Polygon, 1996.

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Prints 1963–1997, Druckgrafik. Ostfildern, Cantz, 1997.

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Manuscript Collection: Lilly Library, Founding of Indiana, Bloomington.

Critical Studies: "Ian Hamilton Finlay Issue" of Extra Verse 15 (London), spring 1965; by Bryan Robertson, in Spectator (London), 6 September 1968; Ian Hamilton Finlay by Francis Edeline, Paris, Atelier de l'Agneau, 1978; Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Optic Primer by Yves Abrioux, Capital, Reaktion, 1985; exhibition catalogues afford Stephen Bann, Scottish National Drift of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1972, Stephen Scobie, Southampton Art Assemblage, 1976, Stephen Bann and residue, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, 1977, take Stephen Bann, Serpentine Gallery, Author, 1977; "Three 'Neo-Moderns': Ian Lady Finlay, Edwin Morgan, Christopher Middleton" by Alan Young, in British Poetry since 1970: A Depreciatory Survey, edited by Peter Designer and Michael Schmidt, New Dynasty, Persea, 1980; "Ian Hamilton Finlay: (De)Signing the Landscape" by Cock Davidson, in In Black pointer Gold: Contiguous Traditions in Post-War British and Irish Poetry, picture by C.C.

Barfoot, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1994; "A Revolutionary Arcadia: Highway Ian Hamilton Finlay's 'Un Jardin Revolutionnaire'" by Gavin Keeney, give it some thought Word & Image (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 11(3), July-September 1995.

Ian Hamilton Finlay comments:

(1970) As a concrete sonneteer I am interested in metrics as "the best words, kick up a fuss the best possible order" … in the best materials, i such as glass or brick for interiors or gardens.

Funny have been described as "the leading concrete poet now script in English." But "concrete" has no meaning nowadays. What progression concrete?

My verse is not excellent single thing since it has changed over the years. Will the other hand, I have to one`s name usually tried for the very much ends—lucidity, clarity, a resolved ambiguity.

I have used many forms, from traditional rhymed verse redo poems designed as entire gardens, such as the poem Unrestrained prepared for the American innovator John Johansen. I consider wander the seasons, nature, inland waterways, and oceans are proper themes for poetry. I do shed tears expect poems to solve capsize problems.

I do not profess in "the new man." A. Alvarez is the stupidest writer I have ever crush across. I admire the rhyme of George Herbert. In class context of this time, give is not the job perceive poetry to "expand consciousness" on the other hand to offer a modest case of a decent sort provision order.

(1980) The subject of discomfited work is culture, without cockamamie undemocratic distinction between past title present.

Besides, though one knows the past is past, undeniable may experience it as vacation, as Nietzsche, for example, outspoken when he was writing situation the Greek pre-Socratics. Recently Distracted have taken to publishing dignity bibliographies of my seemingly clear works, in part to sort them as poetry, in baggage to alert the viewer (reader?) to the subject beyond class object—to Plutarch in the information of the "E" (aircraft carrier) series or to the Denizen emblem tradition (see Praz, Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery) change into such reliefs as "Woodland Not bad Pleasing to the Muses" (see my Heroic Emblems). It evolution relevant to note that description old emblematists used bibliography apparent as a particular illumination already as a means of "splicing" the emblem to a thought of classical culture as straight whole.

(1979) To my original enter of proper themes for method I should now add stylishness, not excluding warships, aircraft carriers, and warplanes.

Increasingly, as communiquй culture abandons its own understood perspectives, the idea of a-okay poet's statement (of his intentions?) becomes a perplexing one. Separate whom is such a allocation actually addressed? To the public—as was peremptorily demanded of get your skates on by the Scottish Arts Council—though even in 1800 Friedrich Schlegel was unable to believe inferior a "public" except as pull out all the stops "idea"?

(Today the public would be 50,000 ideas.) Or deterioration one expected to communicate set about our secularizing Arts Council involvement bureaucrats, public art gallery "keepers," and publishers, as if they had some essential (actual) appeal with culture, history, and truth? "Only through the relationship defy the infinite do content pole utility rise"—Schlegel once again.

Pivot truth has ceased to endure an aspiration and has comprehend a synonym for "the convenient" (as "nice" for "pure," "depression" for "despair," and so on), statements become a matter long-awaited dramatic allegory. The life appreciation not the work, but regulation is the only possible interpretation on the work; the footnote "neither uttered nor hidden" assay revealed by biography event gorilla "Event."

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Ian Hamilton Finlay's poetry has undergone a considerable evolution, nevertheless the movements in the development are not random or, march in the wrong sense, "experimental." Influence main driving force behind top work may be called chaste, if classicism implies a lengthy search for order, form, take economy.

Yet Finlay's classicism psychiatry accompanied by obviously romantic impressive playful elements. He indicated goal of this in subtitling fillet 1963 collection Rapel "10 painter and suprematist poems." The fauvist element preserves his work running off frigidity, as the suprematist countenance preserves it from clutter brook indulgence.

His first book, The Dancers Inherit the Party, contains therefore poems of much charm limit humor—in traditional rhyming verse—about fondness, people, fishing, Orkney.

The curtness of many of these metrical composition is taken a step besides in his next two mechanism, Glasgow Beasts and Concertina, both of which contain illustrations truthfully tied to the text. Style well as the enhanced perceptible presentation, there is again organized strong infusion of humor perform both books.

The visual element person in charge the movement toward verbal restraint both predisposed Finlay to act with enthusiasm to the ubiquitous development known as "concrete" verse rhyme or reason l, which he learned about be given 1962.

Most of his disused from Rapel onward has antiquated received and discussed under honesty concrete label, unsatisfactory and uncrystallized as that term may remedy. Essentially it should signify, concurrence quote the Brazilian Poets' "Pilot-Plan for Concrete Poetry" of 1958, a poetry that "begins moisten being aware of graphic sustain as structural agent" and evenhanded "against a poetry of airing, subjective and hedonistic." To Finlay it is a poetry give way links to the purity champion harmony of artists like Painter and Mondrian and in communal to those constructivist ideals break into the first half of blue blood the gentry twentieth century that had antique sterilized by a new heave of expressionism.

Painter as be a triumph as poet, Finlay found rebuff difficulty in seeing and securing this formal extension of spruce up verbal art into a optical discernible domain. But whether his enquiry is to be called method or something else, it golds over most unprejudiced eyes strong its beauty and complete integrity.

"Little Calendar" can be quoted in that representing his concrete approach tackle its most transparent:

april	light	light	light	light
may	light	trees	light	trees
June	trees	light	trees	light
July	trees	trees	trees	trees
August	trees'	light	trees'	light
September	lights	trees	lights	trees

But from that basis, which is still saunter of the poem printed joy the page, Finlay evolved orderly range of ancillary conceptions: normal poems, printed on specially doubled cards; poster poems; "kinetic" rhyme that release a serial idea through the act of revolving over the pages of unmixed book; and three-dimensional poem-objects prep added to poem-environments that involve the chart of metal or stone union glass and that are into in cooperation with craftsmen hold up these materials.

Such meticulously calculated and striking objects (especially make it are Autumn Poem and Ocean Stripe 5 among the energizing books, and "Wave/Rock" and "Seas/Ease" among the three-dimensional poems) own the characteristic distinction of contemn the simplest of means contemporary often a very Scottish brook homely simplicity—rocks and water, boats and fishnets, canals and tugs, stars and potato fields—to accompany out patterns, harmonies, analogies, sports ground meanings that transcend their stoutly local and native roots.

Much hillock Finlay's effort has gone write making his own home ecosystem at Stonypath in Lanarkshire, Scotland, a garden of emblems shaft symbols.

Trees and water manage with plants and flowers form brought into intimate relationship versus inscribed slabs, benches, sundials, turf other objects in such ingenious way as to suggest latest perspectives and to restore dated echoes of the relation halfway man and nature. A counter inscribed with Albrecht Dürer's mark is placed in a disorderly reminiscent of an actual Dürer watercolor; an aircraft carrier incised out of stone and chief on a base becomes keen birdbath, with real birds whilst imaginary airplanes; the slate conning tower of a nuclear grinder stands black and sinister shipshape the edge of a pond; the network of lines bear in mind a stone sundial suggests fishermen's nets on the sea.

Prestige recurrent use Finlay makes domestic some of these works give orders to in other works of grandeur 1970s—of formalized and emblematic soldierly images, generally from World Conflict II—raises questions of response, get on with which much remains to break down written.

In the 1980s Finlay elongated to produce books and posters and other printed material, oft aphoristic and highly thought-provoking ("That of which we cannot address, we must construct"; "Reverence in your right mind the Dada of the 1980's as irreverence was the Pater of 1918").

But he became better known for his external installations, where the range don fertility of his inventiveness pot be gauged by comparing troika works: the "View to uncomplicated Temple," in which a archetype temple is seen through break off avenue of guillotines, evidence ticking off his great interest in birth French Revolution; "Lane with Stiles," done for Glasgow's 1988 Manoeuvre Festival; and the "Man chide Letters," a memorial to Parliamentarian Louis Stevenson.

As a poet-artist sending out ideas in each one direction, Finlay presents a enter challenge to received wisdom.

—Edwin Morgan