Folk Artist Howard Finster Dies
Corey3rd
Folk Artist Howard Finster Dies
SUMMERVILLE, Ga. (AP) - The Rev. Howard Finster, a folk artist who created
sermons in paint that were featured on the covers
of rock albums and in galleries worldwide, died Monday of congestive heart
failure. He was 84.
Finster died at Redmond Regional Medical Center in nearby Rome, Erwin-Pettit
Funeral Home of Summerville said.
Finster, a Baptist minister since his teens, began his art career in his late
40s, creating works that ranged from wooden cutouts to
paintings to assemblages, many of which he adorned with messages like ``Hell
is a hell of a place'' in block letters.
He often used pop culture icons such as the Coca-Cola bottle, Cadillacs and
Elvis Presley in his work.
``When Christ called his disciples, he called fishermen, he didn't call nobody
from a qualified university,'' Finster said in a 1990
magazine interview. ``He used common people to reveal parables. That's what I
do. I use Elvis because I'm a fan of Elvis. Elvis was
a great guy. By using him I get people's attention and they read my
messages.''
Finster was considered a pioneer among self-taught artists, advancing the
``outsider'' movement with his unique personality,
unflagging salesmanship and resolute work ethic. Such artists work ``outside''
the aesthetic of formal art training.
``He was an introduction to this art for a lot of individuals who had never
heard of it,'' said Marcia Weber, a gallery owner in
Montgomery, Ala., who has handled several Finster paintings. ``He broke
ground.''
Finster's work, consistently imbued with evangelistic themes that exhort the
viewer to repent and accept Christ, became popular in
the early 1980s in New York art galleries.
``He took the word of God and did it entirely in his own way, this eccentric,
unconventional manner,'' said Lynne Spriggs, folk art
curator at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, which holds the world's largest
collection of Finster works. ``He was a tireless artist and a
great teacher.''
Finster's widest exposure may have been from music cover art.
The Georgia-based rock band R.E.M (news - web sites). asked Finster to make
the cover for its 1984 album, ``Reckoning.'' A year
later, Talking Heads, a musical group of former art students, commissioned
Finster for the cover of its ``Little Creatures'' recording.
Finster was also known for his three-acre Paradise Garden, which he described
as a ``folk art haven,'' built in 1961 on filled
swampland behind his home in Pennville in northwest Georgia.
Paradise Garden features mosaic cement paths, a giant cement boot, the Tomb of
the Unknown Body and Finster's folk art chapel.
For years, he spent Sunday afternoons at the garden greeting visitors. He
later moved to nearby Summerville, and Paradise Garden
is now largely owned by the High Museum of Art.
Finster was born on a small farm in DeKalb County, Ala., on Dec. 2, 1916, and
became a Baptist preacher at age 16.
For more than three decades, he traveled Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee
preaching at tent revivals and supplementing his income
with odd jobs, including plumbing and bicycle repair.
In recent years, most of Finster's work was advertised on his Web site, with
the artist himself working at an almost assembly-line
pace.
``We can call it commercialism, but his aim is that his art serves a didactic
function: to spread the word,'' said Lee Kogan, a friend of
Finster's and director of special projects at the Museum of American Folk Art
in New York. ``His art serves God. He's interested in
getting this message out.''
Survivors include his wife, Pauline Freeman Finster; four daughters; a son; 15
grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
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3.2.3
> SUMMERVILLE, Ga. (AP)
does npr cop from the ap? a lot of the language of this article is
exactly as announced on npr this morning.
just curious after seeing the times plaguarize the post under a byline.
(yeah, i know the times acknowledged the post, but there were whole
unquoted paragraphs lifted straight out of the post without a single
word changed).
i mean, as long as disney is going to make cartoon propaganda attempting
to brainwash little kids into thinking newly created types of virtual
property (property being a metaphysical concept on its own, anyway) are
somehow natural, i'm just trying to get a fix on how media outlets see
themselves as recognizing such concepts.
from the proud family website:
"Anything you send to us or do in the Zeether could end up on TV -- on
Zoog Disney!"
3
Ludkmr
Quite a guy the Rev.
kmr
p.a...@rcn.com
10/23/01 12:56 PM:
ReaD THE ROBERTA SMITH OBIT..damn keyboard! in the NYtimes. She does a good
job.