Join us on Thursday 20 June, during opening hours, for the opening of a new major exhibition in Gallery 3, Ian Hamilton Finlay Poet, Artist, Revolutionary.

Ian Hamilton Finlay is one of Scotland’s most important artists of recent times, working across poetry, sculpture and printmaking to create a body of work that is both politically stimulating and rich with innovative ideas. Combining his love of poetry and graphic design, he pioneered concrete poetry; a method which uses typography as a design feature to create text based artworks, which are displayed in the exhibition.

The exhibition is also a fantastic chance to view a number of previously unseen prints from our collection, and the re-installation of two of Finlay’s major sculptural pieces; A Patriots Room and The Three Heads. The works were commissioned by the gallery at the time of its opening in 1996, and will be displayed especially for the exhibition in the bridge of Balcony 2.

At the end of his career Finlay also created Little Sparta, which was voted as Scotland’s most important work of art in 2004. The garden features some of Finlay’s most prolific site-specific work, which includes land art and sculpture surrounded by the picturesque Pentland Hills, in South Edinburgh. If you’re interested in viewing the garden, visit the Little Sparta website to find out more and arrange a viewing.

To coincide with the exhibition, we feature a number of special printing workshops in our summer programme.

Saturday Art Club
29th June, 10.30am – 12.30pm
Printing Workshop, for families and children aged 3 -12

Printing Week
22nd – 25th July, 10.30am – 12pm
A drop in family workshop for ages 8 – 12

GOMA Bites
22nd September, 1pm – 3pm
Printing Process,
A free drop-in activity for adults at the gallery, where we’ll be explore different printing process employed by Ian Hamilton Finlay.

For more information on these workshops, and other events around the city, please visit the Glasgow Life website.

Thank you very much to our current intern from the University of Newcastle, Stephanie, for this blog post.