Studio International

Published 16/03/2005



In a recent survey conducted by a Scottish Sunday paper, Ian Hamilton Finlay's renowned garden of sculpture and conceptual art, 'Little Sparta', came top. A UK-wide poll, taken in the aftermath of the run-up to this year's Turner Prize, had nominated Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' (1917), as the all-time winner. The Scottish survey saw 'Little Sparta' receive three times the number of points as the second-placed 'work', Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art. The famous work attributed to Henry Raeburn, 'The Skating Minister', was in third place (although it is now thought that this painting is not in fact by Raeburn). Eighty-year-old master sculptor Sir Eduardo Paolozzi came sixth overall, with John Bellany seventh. It was perhaps a relief that Jack Vettriano did not seem to figure.