Background

Howard Finster was born on December 2, 1916 in Valley Head, Alabama, United States. He was one of the thirteen children of Samuel Finster and Lula A. Finster.

Education

Howard Finster left school when he was fourteen years old, after completing the sixth grade.

Career

Howard started to serve as a Baptist preacher two years after leaving his school studies. In 1940 he became a full-time pastor at Rock Bridge Baptist Church. Some time later, Finster served at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Fort Payne.

In 1941 he settled with his family in Trion, Georgia, supporting them by doing carpentry, plumbing and even house building, as well as Finster's Arts & Crafts, which produced ''family picture" clocks by the hundreds. He also began repairing and rebuilding bicycles to sell cheaply to families that could not afford new ones.

In 1945, the painter started to build his first garden museum in Trion. Later, in 1961, he bought land in Pennville and began constructing the Paradise Garden. In 1981 Finster expanded the garden in an adjacent lot with an abandoned church, converting the structure into the World's Folk Art Church by adding a 16-sided cupola that he built without plans.

Howard began his career as an artist in 1976. His paintings, which have the same crowded lushness as the garden and are more intricately interwoven with language, were not limited to flat surfaces, but spread across objects, like shoes, metal barrels, gourds, even his white Cadillac.

In 1979 he held his first solo exhibition at Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago. He was also selected to be part of the Venice Biennale in 1984.

In 1985 the band Talking Heads commissioned a Finster painting for "Little Creatures", that was subsequently selected as album cover of the year by Rolling Stone magazine.

Despite declining health in the late 1990s, Finster continued to remain active at festivals and art shows throughout the South and welcomed visitors to Paradise Garden with a folk tune played on his banjo.

During his lifetime, Howard made appearances on television programs in the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Japan and was invited to the White House as a guest of both Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Achievements

• Howard was known for making over 46,000 pieces of art, using various components. He also painted album covers for R.E.M. and Talking Heads, as well as special olympic-themed Coke bottle art for Coca-Cola.
  
  Finster constructed Paradise Garden, which became his most famous accomplishment.
  
  The largest collection of his works is kept at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Works

Works Gallery

• book

  • Howard Finster, Stranger from Another World: Man of Visions Now on This Earth 1989

• installation

  • In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions

• painting

  • Cow Lady

  • President Harry Truman

  • The Great Cheetah

  • City of Sirloc

  • Oblin

  • Jesus Saves

  • Surrender to God from the Toes of Your Shoes, to the Top of your Head

  • Howard and The Book of Life

  • The Super Powers (4581)

  • Baby Elvis

  • Self-Portrait

  • Empty Road (Orange/Red)

  • Leonardo da Vinci

  • Mystery Card - My Visions

  • Frog

  • Baby's Angel

  • Ben Riegel

  • Angel Gabriel

  • Up to Heaven

  • Elvis And The Arpitaun World

  • The Devil's Vice

  • This Planet is Only a Stopover

  • Empty Road (White)

  • Holy Child of Bethlehem (Kid's Dream World)

  • Youth of Abraham

  • Angel Baby with Coca Cola

  • George Washington at 23

  • Flag

  • Florence Nightingale

  • Second Record Painting

  • Desert Taxi

  • God Loves You

  • American Devils Are Friendly

• sculpture

  • Train

  • Coca Cola Airplane

  • Coca Cola Bottle

Views

Quotations: "I come here for one thing, and that is, I have visions of other worlds. I have visions that's inimaginable. I have visions that I can't even tell people. And I try, the best I can, to draw my visions."

"Death is not my problem. My problem is getting all my jobs done well before I leave, for I know there's nothing to do in the holy land where I am going."

Connections

Howard was married to Pauline Freeman. The couple gave birth to five children — Earlene Brown, Gladys Wilson, Beverly Finster, Roy Finster and Thelma Bradshaw.

father:

Samuel Finster

mother:

Lula A. Finster

child:

Earlene Brown

child:

Gladys Wilson

child:

Beverly Finster

child:

Roy Finster

child:

Thelma Bradshaw

wife:

Pauline Freeman

References

• Paradise Garden
  1996
• Howard Finster: The Early Years
  2001
• Envisioning Howard Finster: The Religion and Art of a Stranger from Another World
  2015