Howard Finster

Best known for his work as the painter behind such album jackets as R.E.M.'s Reckoning and Talking Heads' Little Creatures, Howard Finster was perhaps the most prominent and famed member of the so-called "outsider art" movement. A native of Athens, Georgia, Finster spent the better part of his life as a preacher; however, in 1976, at the age of 59, he received a vision which he interpreted as a message from God instructing him to begin painting sacred art. His naive, primitive style — entirely self-taught — quickly made him the subject of a large cult following, and over the decades to follow, he created well over 40,000 pieces eagerly gobbled up by collectors. Already well-known within musical circles for his LP art, Finster began cutting his own records during the mid-1990s; after issuing the Smithsonian collection Man of Many Voices, he released The Night Howard Finster Got Saved in 1997.