Stranger in Paradise: The Works of Reverend Howard Finster

STRANGER IN PARADISE: THE WORKS OF REVEREND HOWARD FINSTER opened January 28th at the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, IL. This is an exhibition you should not miss if you like works that are visionary and self-taught. You see, Finster was not just an artist, he was special— a “stranger from another world,” a shape-shifter, a shaman who traveled between time and space to bring meaning and voice to us mortals of the world. There have been others like him—all put here for special reasons and purpose. Elvis Presley was one, John F. Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King, Ghandi—well, you get the idea. While some shape-shifters achieve greater things than others, Finster did his part to preach his word of peace and love.

If you don’t believe the above, and I’d understand if you did not, perhaps you’d just rather read the catalog.

Following is from the exhibition checklist:
An evangelistic preacher in paint and self-proclaimed Man of Visions, Reverend Howard Finster became one of the most widely known and prolific self-taught artists, producing over 46,000 pieces of art by his death in 2001. Finster often referred to himself as “a stranger from another world” and “God’s last red light on the planet earth.” He saw himself as a sacred artist, fulfilling his visionary prophesies revealed to him by God through a heavenly, outer space world. Thus Finster believed he was to disperse warnings to people to save their souls from the horrors of hell. These experiences were very real to Finster and provided a seemingly limitless variety of images for his art, and content for his rapid fire, stream of consciousness monologues.

In the mid-1960s, Finster began building a roadside park, first known as the Plant Farm Museum, an attraction meant to display all of “the inventions of mankind.” This soon transformed into an outdoor museum of collaged concrete sculpture, collections of unusual junk and recycled machine parts, hanging sun catchers, and buildings covered in paintings and signs. Later, in an 1975 article in Esquire magazine, it was dubbed “Paradise Garden,” and the name stuck.

Finster said he was “God's junk man.” Endlessly inventive, he took all manner of salvaged junk and discarded items, and using his ingenuity and tireless energy, created expressions of his personal visions. In his poem for the garden, he stated, “I took the pieces that you threw away and put them together by night and day, washed by the rain, dried by the sun, a million pieces all in one.”

This exhibition provides an in-depth survey of Finster’s career, covering the variety of themes inherent in his work, much of it relating to his visionary experiences, including: Visions of Other Worlds, Sermons in Paint, Historical and Cultural Heroes and The Plant Farm Museum [Paradise Garden].

There is an accompanying exhibition catalogue available for purchase.

February 23, 5:30 pm:
Film Screening and Panel Discussion • KAM Auditorium I Can Feel Another Planet in My Soul: Strange Visions. Wondrous Art. The Remarkable World of Howard Finster • A showing of excerpts from a documentary film still in progress on Howard Finster followed by a panel discussion with Steven Pattie, executive producer/program creator; Glen C. Davies, exhibition curator; Jim Arient, collector; and Randy Ott, collector

March 4, 5:30 pm:
Guest Lecture “An Inside Look at Outsider Art Environments: Monumental Expressions of Devotion, Evangelism, and Salvation,” a talk by Lisa Stone, author, adjunct associate professor, and curator of the Roger Brown Study Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Co-sponsored by Lorado Taft Lectureship on Art; School of Art + Design; Department of Landscape Architecture; and Krannert Art Museum

A fully illustrated catalog will include essays by the exhibition curator, Jim Arient (representative of the Arient family, who are principle lenders to the exhibition), Phyllis Kind (President of the Phyllis Kind Gallery), and Norman J. Girardot (Professor of Religious Studies, Lehigh University) and a checklist of works in the exhibition.

Schedule:
Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion
January 29 through March 28, 2010

Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
July 24 through September 26, 2010

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art,
Auburn University, Auburn, AL
December 11, 2010 to March 12, 2011

Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL
April 22 through August 28, 2011

Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, TN
November 10, 2011 through January 15, 2012

Photos above by Dr. James F. (see them here.)

The Roger Brown Study Collection

(Above) Upstairs, front room of the Roger Brown Study Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Click for larger view.

(Above) The yellow painting above is an early Karl Wirsum and below, a red and blue abstraction by artist Barbara Rossi. Click for larger view.

(Above) Painting by Christina Ramberg, one of the original Chicago Imagists who died in 1995 at the young age of 49. Click for larger view.

(Above) A fine relief carving by the great Elijah Pierce (1892 -1984), a barber/preacher and artist from Columbus, OH. Click for larger view.

(Above) An entire room of Joseph Yoakum (1886 - 1972) paintings was breath-taking to view. Click for larger view.

(Above) Brown was a voracious collector of cool stuff. I understand his love for the odd and quirky. Click for larger view.

(Above) A hand-carved 1940’s-50’s advertising figure caught my eye. Click for larger view.

(Above) This powerful carving of a monkey-like animal was most likely made by an anonymous artist. Click for larger view.

(Above) A painting by Chicago artist Mike Noland, a well-known and highly collected painter whose work follows in the tradition of the Chicago Imagists.
Click for larger view.

(Above) This circus banner was huge and draped down a stairwell. Click for larger view.

(Above) This is a great “cheesecake” painting on a barrel lid, very well done. Anonymous artist. Click for larger view.


(Above) Carving by self-taught artist William Dawson (1901 - 1989). Click for larger view.

(Above) A strange and surreal masterpiece by the great self-taught artist Drossos Skyllas (1912 - 1973). Click for larger view.

(Above) A “yellow cab” painting on a found object (an iron) by Roger Brown. Click for larger view.

SEVERAL WEEKS AGO I HAD THE PLEASURE OF VISITING THE ROGER BROWN STUDY COLLECTION located in Chicago. I had been there once before several years ago, and for the most part, it was as I remember it. It is run by curator Lisa Stone and is now a part of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

From the RBSC Web site:

“Established in 1997, the Roger Brown Study Collection (RBSC) is an artists’ study collection and archive, preserved intact in a historic house museum setting. Located off campus in artist and SAIC alumnus Roger Brown’s former home, an 1888 storefront building at 1926 North Halsted Street, the RBSC is an intimate collection with an astonishing range of objects, including works by Chicago Imagists and other contemporary artists, self-taught artists, folk and tribal art from many cultures, objects from material and popular culture, costumes, textiles, furniture, travel souvenirs, and other things Brown surrounded himself with for artistic inspiration.

The RBSC archive is a comprehensive collection of the artist’s personal and working life, and includes Brown’s sketchbooks, library, slides and photographs, personal and professional correspondence, writings, architectural drawings, studies for large-scale projects, and prints and works on paper. The collection is installed as Brown left it, throughout the second floor of the building and two stairways; the archive is on the first floor.”

Contact the RBSC:
Roger Brown Study Collection,
1926 North Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60614
Telephone: 773. 929-2452
Fax: 773. 665-4802 Email: lstone@saic.edu