Ian Hamilton Finlay: “Cythera” (National Flag Series), 1973 (verso)

Ian Hamilton Finlay: “Cythera” (National Flag Series), 1973 (verso)
Colour postcard, 10.4x14.8 cm. Private collection.

In 1973, Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006), the Scottish conceptual artist, concrete poet and landcape gardener, published the first two in a series of four “National Flag Series”: “Arcadia” (with Ron Costley) and “Cythera” (with Karl Torok); they were followed a year later by the flag proposals for “Valhalla” and “Utopia” (both with Michael Harvey).

Produced, like many of the artist’s smaller works, in the form of colour lithographic postcards, they were published as usual by Finlay’s Wild Hawthorn Press and circulated amongst the still small band of Finlay’s admirers and collectors.