‘Concrete poet’ Ian Hamilton Finlay dies age 80

Tim Cornwell in The Scotsman:

FinlayThe artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay, who devoted decades of his life to a living work of art, his garden at Little Sparta, has died.

The “concrete poet”, whose work often featured inscriptions sculpted on walls or floors, died peacefully at the age of 80 in an Edinburgh nursing home after a long illness.

The director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Richard Calvocoressi, yesterday called him “the most original artist to have worked in Scotland in the last 50 years”.

Little Sparta, the garden that Finlay carved out of six acres on the edge of the Pentlands, he said, “is known all over the world and will remain his lasting monument”.

The director of the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, Professor Stephen Blackmore, said: “Scotland has lost a unique and inspirational gardener and a truly brilliant man.”

More here.  [Thanks to Alta L. Price.]