At the Field’s Edge

1978

© Estate of Ian Hamilton Finlay

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Ian Hamilton Finlay 1925–2006
Medium: Screenprint on paper
Dimensions: Image: 296 x 504 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1982
Reference: P07646

Catalogue entry

P07646 At the Field's Edge 1978

Screenprint 11 5/8×19 7/8 (296 × 504), printed at Girdwood, Edinburgh, published by the Wild Hawthorn Press in an edition of 300.
Inscribed ‘Ian Hamilton Finlay’ and ‘89’ on a sheet of tracing paper
Purchased from the artist (Grant-in-Aid) 1982

This work consists of a folded sheet of paper (enclosing a separate sheet of tracing paper bearing the inscription and other information). On the right hand leaf of the open sheet is an image of the flat-topped prow of an aircraft carrier, from a drawing by John Borg Manduca; text on the opposite leaf reads: ‘At the field's edge, on the vertiginous cliff-top, stood a solitary hut’. The carrier is represented, as in other work by Finlay, as an aspect of the modern ‘epic’ and ‘sublime’.

This and the following entries [P07625-P07634 and P07645-P07647] have all been approved by the artist.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1986