NAJ 77/78 (2022), A5 book, 228 pages, 204 illustrations

The upland garden of Little Sparta is evocative of distant seas. Atlantic Flowers offers fresh insights into the poetic gardening of Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) by acknowledging that the warship sculptures are simultaneously naval memorials. These comprise about a tenth of the garden’s 280 artworks, which elaborate the poet’s rich treasury of ideas. Dr Patrick Eyres explores the consistency of this little known, understated and almost private, elegiac theme from the initial memorial to HMS Illustrious (1972), to the cluster of artworks (1999-2001) that culminate in the monumental Camouflaged Flowers. This epic composition of garden and landscape, planting and sculpture, weather and seasons, commemorates the Flower Class corvettes of the Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945).

Atlantic Flowers was realised through the generous permission granted by the Ian Hamilton Finlay Estate to reproduce copyright material.

Plinius, some LANDSCAPES, 7 May 2023 (extract). “It sound like quite a specialised study but the pleasure of reading the journal (essentially a beautifully illustrated book), is that it conveys a lifetime’s engagement with the garden as a whole and Patrick Eyres’ long friendship with Finlay … Photographs show how garden features have evolved over time, since Patrick’s first visit in 1979. Paintings, drawings and artworks are reproduced on almost every page, based on the work of Finlay and NAJ collaborators and friends like Chris Broughton, Catherine Aldred and former-Mekon Kevin Lycett”.

For details, see Description below