Howard Finster
American Folk Artist 1916-2001
5 artworks in Harry's collection
Embedded Files
Coke Bottle
Coke Bottle
Signed by artist
Dimensions: 11 x 31 3/4 inches
Edition: 994/1200
A limited edition serigraph on paper titled Coke Bottle by famed folk artist Reverend William Howard Finster. A large Coca-Cola bottle on a vivid red background is filled with figural elements and writings about Coke rendered in simple forms and plain colors. The work is signed in pencil and numbered 994 out of an edition of 1200.
About This Piece
About This Piece
This outsized Coca-Cola bottle belongs to a family of images depicting Finster’s favorite drink. Finster divided the composition into three registers corresponding to the bottle’s structural divisions, unifying the top and bottom portions by painting their backgrounds the same color. A host of Finster’s familiar multihued angels accompanied by stars and spaceships in silver and bright tones circles the upper section. Paths leading around and up the bottle toward Heaven weave together the lower sections, which depict earthly realms. The cars that share the roadways with people and animals symbolize the danger of worldly thrills.
Howard Finster
Howard Finster
Reverend William Howard Finster was a minister for over forty years in Alabama where he was born. After retirement he moved to Summerville, Georgia, where he turned his swampland into Paradise Garden in reflection of his religious beliefs and a mission to create sacred art. Finster used oil, watercolor, lacquer and paints on found objects and salvaged pieces of glass and cardboard to make religious folk art creations.
His most well known work is the eight foot tall Coca-Cola bottle commissioned for the 1996 Olympic Games global art project. Finster promised God he would create 5,000 paintings in his lifetime and in the end created 46,991 numbered pieces.
Gabriel's Trumpet
Gabriel's Trumpet
Signed by artist c. 1994
3 editions in Harry's collection
(1) 38 x 13 1/2 inches
316/1000
(2)
Healthy Environment
Healthy Environment
Signed by the artist Howard Finster
c. 1986
Framed: 18 x 15 1/2 inches
Inside Frame: 8 1/2 x 11 inches
Edition: 192/ 750
More About the Artist
More About the Artist
Very fun video
Howard Finster was an American artist famed for his often bizarre paintings and sculptures of angels, aliens, and historical figures such as George Washington. Finster was a Baptist minister and used visions that he believed were divine inspirations from God to create Paradise Garden, a folk art sculpture garden dedicated to his life and work which included more than 50,000 original works of icons such as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Mickey Mouse. Born on December 2, 1916 in Valley Head, AL, he stopped school in the sixth grade and never received an art education, and instead began preaching at the age of 16. In the late 1940s, Finster started constructing his garden installation work, the inventions of mankind, in which he hoped to make models of everything humans had ever invented set within a Garden of Eden space. The artist was prolific throughout his career and made commissioned album covers for both the Talking Heads and R.E.M, and also participated in the Venice Biennale in 1984. Today, his works are in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Finster died on October 22, 2001 in Rome, GA.
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