Howard Finster

All Artists: 

About the artist

1916–2001, lived and worked in Summerville, Georgia

Perhaps the most famous American self-taught artist of all—with over 46,000 numbered pieces, probably the most prolific, too—Reverend Howard Finster was the self-styled prophet and superstar of the scene. In the early 1960s, after preaching for forty years, Finster was called upon by God to transform the land around his Summerville, Georgia, home into the Paradise Garden, a towering found-object sculptural shrine to the Lord and human industry and invention, which eventually included the functioning World’s Folk Art Church, Inc. A second vision in 1976, in which God appeared in a paint smudge on his finger, led to his proselytizing painting practice, which occupied much of his subsequent artistic career (although he continued making sculptures as well.) Finster’s vivid and obsessive “sermon art,” a voracious endeavor that consumed Elvis, the Ford family, Coca-Cola, and UFOs in addition to Biblical and historical subjects, rapidly attracted a media frenzy and extensive exhibition. Local renown for his immersive mystical environment became international celebrity in the 1980s, when he was featured in Life magazine and commissioned to design album covers for the rock bands Talking Heads and REM. (Finster played banjo himself and appreciated music.)

     For Finster, art was a tool of spiritual salvation, a means to spread his personal interpretation of the Gospel. Finster would frequently forego sleep in order to accomplish his divinely sanctioned production quota, and the feverish pace of his intuitive, inspired translations of the Gospel is evident. The work reflects his emphasis on its communicative purpose—dense text and Biblical quotations are interwoven with fields of colorful scenes depicting both deliverance and damnation. A palimpsest of meanings emerges, in which text determines composition and vice versa. Metaphysical speculation, cryptic hymnody, religious warnings, and moral admonishment are tempered by a healthy sense of humor and a prevailing vision of hope and the oneness of humanity. Howard Finster’s work resides in major collections worldwide, including the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

—Brendan Greaves

Bibliography

Art Outsider et Folk Art des Collections de Chicago. Paris: Halle Saint Pierre, 1998.

Baking in the Sun: Visionary Images from the South—Selections from the Collection of Sylvia and Warren Lowe. Lafayette, LA: University Art Museum, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1987.
 
Beardsley, John, and photographer James Pierce. Gardens of Revelation: Environments by Visionary Artists. New York: Abbeville, 1995.
 
Common Ground/Uncommon Vision: The Michael and Julie Hall Collection of American Folk Art. Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1993.
 
Contemporary American Folk, Naïve, and Outsider Art: Into the Mainstream? Oxford, OH: Miami University Art Museum, 1990.
 
Enisled Visions: The Southern Non-Traditional Folk Artist. Mobile, AL: Fine Arts Museum of the South, 1987.
 
Finster, Howard. Howard Finster, Man of Visions. Atlanta, Peachtree, 1989.
 
___________. Howard Finster’s Vision of 1982. Visions of 200 Light Years Away. Summerville, GA: Privately printed, 1982.
 
___________. Howard’s Road from the 3 to 71 Years: The Scrapbook of All Time. Summerville, GA: Privately printed, 1988.
 
__________, and as told to Tom Patterson. Howard Finster: Stranger from Another World, Man of Visions New on this Earth. New York: Abbeville Press, 1989.
 
Howard Finster Man of Visions: The Garden and Other Creations. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Art Alliance, 1984.
 
Johnson, Jay, and William Ketchum, Jr. American Folk Art of the Twentieth Century. New York: Rizzoli, 1983.
 
Keeping The Faith: An Exhibition of Religious Folk Art. St. Louis, MO: Center of Contemporary Art, 1999.
 
Let It Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection. Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, in association with the University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, 2001.
 
Outside the Mainstream: Folk Art in Our Time. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 1988.
 
Patterson, Tom. “Paradise Before and After the Fall,” Raw Vision 35 (Summer 2001)
 
Peacock, Robert, with Annibel Jenkins. Paradise Gardens: A Trip through Howard Finster’s Visionary World. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996.
 
Prince, Daniel C. “Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden: A Plan for the Future.” The Clarion 13, no. 1 (Winter 1988): 56-57.
 
Reverend Howard Finster Paintings. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut/Atrium Gallery, 1986.
 
Russell, Charles, ed. Self-Taught Art: The Culture and Aesthetics of American Vernacular Art. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.
 
The Sacred Vision of Howard Finster. Produced by the Museum of American Folk Art, director, Jay Brown, 1995, 30 minutes, color, VHS tape. A Planet Inc. production.
 
Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology. New York: Museum of American Folk Art, in association with Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1998.

Artwork


Howard Finster
Self-Portrait, c. 1976
Photo courtesy Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia


Howard Finster
The Work of the Last Days, c. 1976
house enamel on 50-gallon metal drum top
Photo courtesy Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia


Howard Finster
The Angel of the Lord, 1989
enamel on wood
45 x 86 inches
Courtesy Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York


Howard Finster
Four Presidents, 1983
enamel on wood
24 x 28 inches
Courtesy Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York


Howard Finster
Your Time Grows Shorter by the Hour . . ., 1990
Plexiglas, enamel on wood
16 x 10 1/2 x 4 inches
Courtesy Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
30 South 17th Street, 12th floor | Philadelphia, PA 19103-4196 | 215.979.1155