Howard Finster

The art world uses the label “outsider artist” to apply to a whole range of self-taught creative types — from people in prison to folk painters. But for many people the term is personified by the late Reverend Howard Finster. The Baptist preacher from Summerville, Georgia first began to paint in the mid 1970s after he spotted an image of Jesus on his thumb while he was painting a bicycle. Finster painted almost compulsively from that point on, and his subjects ranged from Jesus to Elvis to Coke bottles. Studio 360 talked to Phyllis Kind, the art dealer who discovered Finster, and asked her to describe the genius she saw in his work. Produced by Trey Kay.