Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
INVENTORY OF THE IAN HAMILTON FINLAY PAPERS,
1948-1992
890144
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Ian Hamilton Finlay papers
Date (inclusive): 1948-1992
Collection number: 890144
Creator:
Finlay, Ian Hamilton
Collector:
Cutts, Simon, 1944-
Extent:
ca. 10 lin ft.
Repository:
Getty Research Institute
Research Library
Special Collections and Visual Resources
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688
Abstract: 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.
Request Materials: To access physical materials on site, go to the
library catalog record for this collection and click "Request an Item." Click here for
access policy .
Language: Collection material in
English
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Rights and Reproductions
Ian Hamilton Finlay papers 1948-1992, Getty Research Institute,
Research Library, Accession no. 890144.
Acquired in 1989.
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.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Ian Hamilton Finlay archive provides a record, through letters,
manuscripts and printed pieces, of the work of the Scottish concrete poet,
garden designer and controversialist.
The collection primarily contains printed works by Finlay: mail art
cards, pamphlets, posters and broadsides, and small books, most printed at his
Wild Hawthorn Press, 1958-1989, and correspondence, 1948-1993, with friends,
collectors, and fellow artists such as Derrick Stanford (1948-1952), Simon
Cutts (1968-77), Ronnie Duncan (1978-1986), Graeme Murray (1972-1988), Karl
Torok (1972-1977). Manuscripts, maquettes, dummies and models for projects,
1963-1989, with photographs and transparencies of early and abandoned works and
works in progress, 1965-1989, document the creation of a range of his projects,
mostly printed works. Reviews and press clippings of Finlay's "polemical
affairs, wars and battles," along with printed works he created while fighting
his battles, illustrate the dispute over the publication by the Fulcrum Press
of his "The Dancers Inherit the Party," his dispute with the local authorities
over the designation of his "garden temple" as an art gallery, and the
controversy accompanying Finlay's commission, subsequently revoked, to design a
bicentennial garden at Versailles, 1969-1989. Also included in the archive are
catalogues and invitations for exhibitions, contributions by Finlay to
magazines, books and exhibition catalogues, and critical writings by others on
Finlay.
Arrangement
The papers are organized in 7 series:
Series I: Correspondence 1948-1992
Series II: Manuscripts and mock-ups
Series III: Project Files of Art Work and Ensuing
Controversies
Series IV: Finlay's Printed Cards
Series V: Photographs, 1967-1989
Series VI: Published Materials: by and about Finlay
Series VII: Oversize printed pieces, by Finlay
Finlay, Ian
Hamilton
Concrete poetry,
English
Gardens—Design
Mail art
Poetry—Periodicals
Artists
books—Scotland
Photographic
prints
Posters
Transparencies
Cutts, Simon,
1944-
Duncan,
Ronnie
Gardner, Ian
Murray,
Graeme
Stanford,
Derrick
Torok, Karl