Sunset Drinks and Guided Tours

Get a guided tour of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s exhibition at Sfeir-Semler Gallery followed by drinks and a reception.

Ian Hamilton Finlay was a poet, philosopher, gardener and artist. His work rose to fame in the early 1960s as one of the leading artists of concrete poetry, a movement whereby layout and typography contribute to the overall effect of poetry, which served as a key influence to contemporary conceptual artists around the world. In 1966, he moved with his wife to Stonypath, an isolated moorland cottage in the Pentland Hills south of Edinburgh. Here he began to inscribe his words and poetry on to stone and other materials within a natural environment he cultivated, thus creating his most notable work, his garden, Little Sparta.

His work is distinguished for a number of periodic subjects, such as fishing and maritime themes, an interest in the origins of Western thinking, Neo-classicism, the pre-Socratic philosophers (especially Heraclitus) and their vocabulary, all with a constant reference to natural elements. In addition to philosophical and natural aspects, the work has strong historical and political allusions, whereby Finlay revisits the French Revolution and the two World Wars.

His current show embraces all the aforementioned themes, yet it focuses on the delicate balance between nature and culture, and terror and virtue. This constant struggle for a balance of two opposites sheds light on the current political, social, and environmental turmoil, thus showing the universality of Finlay’s poetry and work.