The Press Council
Mr Ian Hamilton Finlay is a Scottish concrete poet who almost never leaves his home at Stonypath in Lanarkshire. He is said to have transformed his garden there into some sort of terrestrial paradise, a landscape sprinkled with 'artefacts' in stone or wood inscribed with poetic messages. Last autumn a rare exhibition of Mr Hamilton Finlay's work was mounted at the Serpentine Gallery in London, and the Spectator's art critic, John McEwen, gave it a decidedly unfriendly review. Mr. Hamilton Finlay was very angry. He claimed that the review contained a number of factual errors to support what he called 'an inexact opinion.' He demanded that the Spectator should correct them. Mr McEwen could find only two errors which, although trivial, seemed to him worthy of correction. He apologised for these two errors in a letter published in the Spectator. Mr Hamilton Finlay was not satisfied. The Spectator was bombarded with letters of complaint from himself and from many others whose attention — one might reasonably suspect — had been drawn to the review by Mr Hamilton Finlay himself. The language of these letters was often extravagant. Mr. McEwen was accused by Mr Hamilton Finlay of lying and was described by him as a 'glass-fleshed lout.' He was aLso banned for life from one Edinburgh art gallery. Mr Hamilton Finlay, outraged by the Spectator's refusal to correct 'errors' which it regarded as either non-existent or of extraordinary triviality, complained to the Press Council, which has now handed down the following adjudication: Critics are entitled to be as critical as they wish to be but they should also be accurate. There were factual inaccuracies which were considered significant by the artist and only some of them were corrected. To that extent the complaint against the Spectator is upheld.
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