Ian Hamilton Finlay & The Wild Hawthorn Press

Ian Hamilton Finlay is known as a poet, designer and an artist of international renown. He first came to prominence in the 1960s as Britain’s foremost concrete poet, and the Wild Hawthorn Press which he founded in 1961, did much to promote both innovative poetry and his own work. In 1967, Finlay moved to Lanarkshire, where he began to develop the garden at Stonypath – now recognised as one of the most important contemporary gardens in Britain, and the site of much of his recent work.

In September, the Frith Street Gallery will exhibit a selection of works from the wide range of printed material produced by Finlay and his Wild Hawthorn Press, between 1958 and 1990. Included will be examples of his magazine Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. – which printed concrete, semiotic and sound poetry by contributors from around the world, and helped to lay the foundation for Finlay’s continuing interest in verbal transformation and play.

The Wild Hawthorn Press, which at the outset published works by a number of contemporary artists, came over the years to concentrate exclusively on Finlay’s own production – booklets, cards, poem/posters, and, more recently proposals for large landscape commissions have all appeared under its imprint. These pieces testify to Finlay’s on-going exploration of language and its relationship to the three dimensional world – a single word acquires the status of a poem, poems become kinetic as we turn the pages, and, increasingly, the coupling of word and image confronts us with the multiplicities of meaning.

The proposals which will be exhibited point to Finlay’s large-scale works and commissions, in which words are literally made object. Each idea and project has been accompanied by a printed proposal, outlining sculptures and epigrams to be placed within the designed landscape or architectural setting.

A selection from all areas will be included in this exhibition, which aims to confirm both the standing of Finlay’s reputation and the breadth and coherence of his output.