Howard Finster, 1916-2001

By Toby Berryman

7. WORDS OF JESUS IN THE CASTLE OF MY FATHERS HOUSE ARE MANNY MANSIONS, Paradise Garden Polaroids 7, c. 1978, polaroid photographs

Although critics refer to him as the ‘Andy Warhol of the South’ or the ‘Grandfather of Southern Folk Art’, Revd. Howard Finster preferred to see himself as an artistic ‘stranger from another world’ or ‘God’s last red light’ on Earth. The artist took on innumerable roles throughout a fabled artistic career, which commenced only at the age of sixty-one, and a corporeal life which began one hundred and seven years ago this very week. Intriguingly, the sole title to which he held an aversion was that of ‘artist’, offering a revealing glimpse into a life shaped equally by religion and celebrity.

Born in Alabama in 1916 to a poor white family, Howard was raised amongst thirteen siblings on the family-farm. But this is where conventionality ends. At the age of just three, he claimed to have had his first vision, having seen his recently deceased sister walk down from the sky in a white gown to proclaim “Howard, you’re gonna [sic.] be a man of visions”. At the age of thirteen he was ‘born again’, at sixteen he was a local-preacher, and at the age of forty he became a formal pastor. He led tent-revivals and worked as a bricklayer, plumber, carpenter, and lawn mower-repairman to support his wife and children until in 1976, another vision changed the course of his life. Whilst repairing a bicycle, he dipped his hands in white paint and looked down to see a perfect human-face appear on the ball of his finger which instructed, “paint sacred art”. And so (with no training) he did, completing over forty-seven thousand pieces before his passing in 2001.

Finster’s most impressive creation is undoubtedly the Paradise Garden, a four-acre art environment once his own back garden and which houses vast swathes of his prolific output. Still accessible today, Finster’s folk-art-assemblage amassed great fame throughout the 1970s. Its visitors included artists Keith Haring and Purvis Young, while alternative-rock band R.E.M. shot a music video on-site featuring Finster (they later commissioned him for their Reckoning (1984) LP). The vibrant gesamtkunstwerk features found objects, sculptural installations, painted works on all manner of surfaces (typically defined by Finster’s attention to text, and often bible verse), and even a spire-topped church.

Little Creatures (for Talking Heads), 1985, offset lithograph on paper (album cover)

It was from this public site that Finster’s own celebrity grew. He received commissions from The Library of Congress and Talking Heads (for which he was later awarded Rolling Stone’s ‘Album Cover of the Year’ award), also appearing on The Johnny Carson Show and starring in his own documentary. All the while, he remained true to his religious calling – Talking Heads’ Little Creatures (1985), for instance, featured twenty-six religious verses – welcoming the broad audience his new-found fame had gifted him with his sanctified message.

While scholarly discussions continue regarding the artistic genre of Finster’s work (be that folk, religious, vernacular, self-taught, outsider, visionary, naïve or pop art), the ambiguity and diversity of Howard Finster is what defined his artistic production. From his witty self-portrait Howard & His Message in a Shoe (1989) to Elvis C’Mon Everybody! (1996) and to The World’s Folk Art Church (1980s), Howard Finster’s art spanned subjects, genres, and media, exploiting all means to spread his word. Despite its exhibition at the Venice Biennale and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Finster’s work was traditionally widely dismissed by academic art history. Recent years, however, have seen the receipt of greater recognition (and exhibition), with Finster’s oeuvre and artistic legacy increasingly understood as formative to much of the contemporary art world today.

Despite his own ambition to be buried in a homemade coffin at Paradise Garden, Finster was laid to rest at his birthplace in nearby Valley Head, Alabama in 2001. Each year, his hometown celebrates the ‘Howard Finster Day’ folk art festival in his memory.

Bibliography

Amiran, E. ‘Finster’s Finger: The Trans-Generational Art of Howard Finster’. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 53, No. 1 (March 2020): 19-38.

Bradshaw, T. Finster Howard Finster: The Early Years. Birmingham, AL: Crane Hill Publishers, 2001.

Finster, H. and Girardot, N. and Viera, R. ‘Howard Finster: Interviewed by Norman Girardot and Ricardo Viera’. Art Journal 53, No. 1 (Spring 1994, Art and Old Age): 48-50.

Girardot, N. and LaBelle, D. and Viera, R. Howard Finster (1916-2001), Exhibition Catalogue. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Art Galleries, 2004.

Himes, Geoffrey. ‘When Rock Bands Flocked to Howard Finster’s Remote, Bizarre Artist Compound’. Smithsonian Magazine. July 23, 2015. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/when-rock-bands-flocked-howard-finsters-remote-bizarre-artist-compound-180956012/.

Kirwin, L. ‘The Reverend Howard Finster: The Last Red Light before the Apocalypse’. American Art 16, No. 2 (Summer 2002): 90-93.

Paradise Garden Foundation. “The Man of Vision – History”. https://paradisegardenfoundation.org/history/the-man-of-vision/.

Smith, Roberta. ‘Howard Finster, Folk Artist and Preacher, Dies at 84’. New York Times, National Edition. October 23, 2001. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/23/arts/howard-finster-folk-artist-and-preacher-dies-at-84.html.