Curated by Norman Girardot, Diane LaBelle, and Ricardo Viera

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A chronological view of the Paradise Garden in Summerville, Georgia, and selected images from Finster’s three visits to Lehigh University, beginning in 1986.  Photography by Ricardo Viera and Norman Girardot.

During the late 1970s and through most of the 1980s, Howard Finster experienced increasingly frequent, vivid, and compelling visions that were displayed in his myriad and progressively more complex artworks, books, assemblages, and environmental constructions (Paradise Garden). By the late 1980s, Finster was discovered by several mainstream cultural agencies (e.g., Johnny Carson, The Wall Street Journal, the Smithsonian Institution, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Museum of American Folk Art, and various colleges and universities like the University of Richmond and Lehigh University- as well as alternative musical groups like R.E.M. and The Talking Heads).

EXHIBITION: “Howard Finster(1916-2001): Paradise Garden”: Fall 2004