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REVEREND HOWARD FINSTER (1916 - 2001) |
Born in Valley Head, Alabama into a family of 13 children in the rural south, Reverend Finster would become one of the most influential artists of the century. He
first started receiving outside publicity in 1975.
That year, Atlanta,
GA television
station Channel 5 ran a story and
he also appeared in an Esquire magazine article that
first dubbed his museum Paradise Garden. He made his first
exhibition appearance in 1976
and painted four paintings for the Library
of Congress in 1977.
He was also selected to be part of the Venice
Biennale
in 1984. |
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EWG is happy to have this unique piece at such a good price.
"Desert Taxi" July 15th 1989 A rare camel cut out, Finster used this image to express his visions about why God created animals. The inscription says; "......some for work animals-some to give us milk-some to grow wool-some for house pets-and watch dogs...." For the complete inscription, please call the gallery: 850-502-1847 12" x 8.25" SPECIAL MAY SALE PRICE: $145.00 ___________________________________________________________________________________
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| fFinster's
images range from pop culture icons like Elvis
Presley
to historical figures like George
Washington
to religious images like The Devils Vice and "John
the Baptist"
to his own visions. His paintings are colorful and detailed; they use
flat picture plane without perspective and are often covered with words,
especially Bible verses. Every painting also has a number; God had asked
him to do 5,000 paintings to spread the gospel and he wanted to keep
track.
He finished the 5,000 a few days before Christmas in 1985, but continued painting and numbering until the day he died. By 1989, he was already numbering in the ten thousands. Finster gained national fame after his collaborative work with Athens, Georgia-based rock band R.E.M.. The group filmed the video for their debut single Radio Free Europe in Finster's Paradise Gardens in 1983. The following year, the band's singer Michael Stipe and Finster collaborated on a painting for the cover of their second album Reckoning. After that the band made the song Maps and Legends (in its third album "Fables of the Reconstruction") as an homage to Finster. Along with R.E.M., Finster also appeared in the documentary film Athens, GA: Inside Out, filmed in 1985, in which he tells the story of how he came to be an artist. The Talking Heads commissioned a Finster painting for Little Creatures in 1985 that was subsequently selected as album cover of the year by Rolling Stone magazine. Other artists to use Finster as an album cover designer include Memory Dean, Pierce Pettis, and Adam Again. In 1994, a portion of his Paradise Garden was installed as part of the permanent collection of Atlanta's High Museum. Bill Mallonee, himself a Christian, of the Vigilantes of Love (also from Athens, Georgia) wrote a song inspired by Finster's artwork called The Glory and the Dream in 1994. Howard Finster was responsible for introducing millions to outsider art, but even with his fame, he remained focused on spreading the word of God. He said of the Talking Heads album, "I think there's twenty-six religious verses on that first cover I done for them. They sold a million records in the first two and a half months after it come out, so that's twenty-six million verses I got out into the world in two and a half months!" Finster died Sept 22, 2001. He said he was inspired by God to spread the gospel through the environment of Paradise Garden and created over 46,000 pieces of art. A search for Reverend Howard Finster will reveal a world of art undreamed of. |
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Seaside FL 850-225-3024 850-502-1847 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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