The Lost Landscapes of Ian Hamilton Finlay

This display of New Arcadian Press publications marks the centenary of the birth of Scottish poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006).

The editor and publisher of the press, Dr Patrick Eyres, first met Finlay in 1979. By publishing unrealised proposals, Eyres has compiled a printed archive of these lost landscapes.

Ian Hamilton Finlay realised over eighty commissions for landscape installations across Europe, the USA and the UK. Describing his works as pastoral, he championed neoclassicism in contemporary art. As a poet, he chose to collaborate with selected art makers to create printed and sculptural works for gallery exhibitions and landscape installations.

At the heart of his creative practice was the garden he developed with Sue Finlay, from 1966, at their home, Little Sparta, in the Pentland Hills of southern Scotland. This garden continues to attract visitors from around the world, and was included in The New York Times listing of ‘The 25 Gardens You Must See’ in May 2025.

Since 1981, Patrick Eyres has created fifty-six editions of the New Arcadian Journal. It brings together artists and writers to explore designed landscapes, especially their architecture, gardens, monuments, sculpture and inscriptions. Each edition is a treasury of drawing and thought-provoking text. By championing the study of political gardening and by promoting restoration of place and meaning, the journal has shed new light on historical landscapes and has also been the catalyst to contemporary re-interpretation and conservation. The New Aracadian Journal has inadvertently become the only record of certain gardens that failed to survive the death of the artists who created them.

The current edition of the New Arcadian Journal is Virtuous Landscapes, which features proposals for Ian Hamilton Finlay’s two lost Parisian landscapes (1986-88). You can browse the complete set of the journal in Henry Moore Institute’s Research Library.