Description
This collection details the career and work of Scottish concrete poet/artist, Ian Hamilton Finlay. It includes manuscripts,
correspondence, printed materials, garden designs, photographs, project files, clippings, catalogs, and other materials related
to his work, his family, colleagues, friends, and the controversies that surrounded him. Materials collected by Simon Cutts,
publisher of the Coracle Press.
Background
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).