Subfonds DC 123/2 - Collected artworks by various artists

The art of Ian Hamilton Finlay is unusual for encompassing a variety of different media - poetry, philosophy, history, gardening and landscape design amongst others. His work assumed concrete form in cards, books, prints, inscribed stone or wood sculptures, room installations and fully realised garden environments.

Ian Hamilton Finlay was born in the Bahamas of Scottish parents in 1925. He was called up in 1944 and served in the Army for three years. Although he attended Glasgow School of Art from 1941-1942, he did not complete his Diploma and considered himself primarily to be a writer — indeed throughout his career referred to himself as a poet rather than an artist.

After the war, he lived in Perthshire, making a precarious living by writing: he published a volume of poems, The Dancers Inherit the Party, and had several scripts broadcast by the BBC. In 1966 he moved with his wife to a property at Stonypath in rural Lanarkshire, with extensive grounds which would eventually come to be known as Little Sparta. Here he began to work on the garden which became central to his life’s work.

Though his work is usually Classical in form, sometimes with surreal overtones, Finlay never claimed any skill as a craftsman employing assistants who were always fully credited and treated as collaborators. Finlay insisted upon precise execution and first-rate technical qualities in any work associated with his name, and to achieve this he chose to work with top calligraphers and carvers, though there was never any doubt that the concept and design were entirely his own.

Despite devoting his life and art to the pacifist cause, Finlay was famously prone to confrontation — with everyone from his local council in Scotland and the various British Arts Councils to the French Government. His running battles with Strathclyde Regional Council over whether he should pay commercial rates on a ruined cow byre in his grounds, converted into what the council claimed was a commercial gallery while in his eyes it was a garden temple, made news in a way that hardly any art exhibition could ever hope to.

A severe sufferer from agoraphobia, Finlay was virtually confined to Little Sparta for more than 20 years, and concentrated much of his creative energy on its garden, which is tightly organised with inscribed stones, monuments and whole buildings, many reflecting, by way of myth and legend, on the subject of war

Despite bouts of serious illness he remained enormously productive in a great variety of media. In 1981 he co-founded, with Jessie McGuffie, the Wild Hawthorn Press, as an outlet for contemporary poetry, but gradually it came to concentrate almost exclusively on his enormous output of poems and texts, photographs and prints.

He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1985, and appointed CBE in 2002.

Alan Cox graduated from the Central School of Art in 1965 and exhibited widely both in the UK and internationally. His group shows included exhibitions at the Barbican Centre and the Royal Academy, while solo shows included Stones at the Jordan Gallery and the Glasgow Print Gallery in Scotland. He lived and works in London.

Alasdair Gray was born in Riddrie in Glasgow in 1934. He studied at The Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As an artist, he specialised in mural, narrative paintings, still life, figurative subjects and portraits and worked in oil and the occasional watercolour. His murals are shown at the Oran Mor venue and in the Hillhead Subway Station, both in Glasgow.

The main themes in his paintings were the Garden of Eden and triumph of death. He published numerous forms of literature including novels, short stories, plays, poetry, essays, and translations. He wrote about politics and the history of British literature including realism, fantasy, and science fiction. As a prolific author and illustrator, his best-known book titled 'Lanark' (1981) is seen as a landmark in Scottish literature. He won various awards for his typography, illustrations, and written works. Since 1979, he exhibited three times at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) in Edinburgh and the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts 29 times.

Considered a polymath, he suffered from bad eczema and asthma. Politically, he was Left and supported Scottish independence. In 1961, he was married to Inge Sorensen until 1970. In 1991, he married Morag McAlpine who died in May 2014. In 2015, he had a bad fall and was confined to a wheelchair for a time. Gray passed away in 2019 the age of 85; he left his body to science. He is survived by his son, Andrew, and a granddaughter. His work has been exhibited in Glasgow Museums, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Library of Scotland, and the Hunterian Museum.

Elspeth Lamb studied at Glasgow School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Tamarind Institute of Lithography, University of New Mexico USA, her main specialism being printmaking. She is an elected RSA Academician, and an elected member of the Society of Scottish Artists and Royal Glasgow Institute, and has taught several workshops in lithography at the Joan Miro Foundation in Mallorca, Spain. For 21 years she taught at the Edinburgh College of Art, latterly as Head of the Department of Printmaking and she has been visiting lecturer at many colleges in the UK including the Glasgow School of Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College Dundee and Middlesex University. She chose to give up all academic teaching commitments in 1999 to pursue her artistic career.

Painter, printmaker, artist in opto-kinetic construction and teacher, born in Cambridge. Studied at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, 1962–4, Nottingham College of Art and Design, 1964–7, where his work was influenced by the tuition of Bridget Riley, and at Slade School of Fine Art, 1967–9, under Robyn Denny. Went on to teach at Glasgow School of Art. Did some scientific book illustration. Showed widely in England and abroad. Work held by Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, Scottish Arts Council and Cambridge University. Lived for some time at Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire.

Workshop Manager at Glasgow Print Studio.

Calum Mackenzie joined Glasgow Print Studio as Director in 1975 and led the organisation until 1983. Under his ambitious leadership the organisation flourished, moving from a West End flat to large premises on Ingram Street. Prestigious and popular exhibitions included Mark Gertler, Max Ernst, L.S. Lowry and the Scottish Cartoonists exhibition. At Ingram Street, Calum established the Print Studio Press, giving writers such as Alasdair Gray and Liz Lochhead their first opportunity to have a book published. He also presided over many inventive fundraising events, such as the first ‘Loveliest Night of the Year’, the legendary annual Midsummer’s Ball.
In recent years, Calum began to use the Print Studio again to produce his own digital prints. His work was exhibited regularly at Glasgow Print Studio as well as being shown at the Royal Scottish Academy in 2010 to great acclaim.