The Howard Finster Vision House Museum
I remember seeing an entire wall of Howard Finster pieces for the first time like it was yesterday. It was actually 30 years ago. Howard Finster’s ability to blend the icons of popular culture and the icons of Christianity were very compelling then and they still are to this day.
The first Howard Finster original I bought was “The Desert Taxi, Camel”. I didn’t realize that day, but soon thereafter, that I would want an Art Museum for my Howard Finster collection. It couldn’t have turned out more perfectly that I had the opportunity to buy his house in Summerville, GA, where he lived when he had his vision from God to paint sacred art.
Howard Finster was nicer to me than anybody but my Mama, and restoring the Howard Finster Vision House Museum is the least I can do for my humble country, preacher, mentor.
The Howard Finster Vision House Museum is available for viewing by appointment. We are still working on our Bed and Breakfast which will be available to visitors soon.
You can have your name on the wall of the Howard Finster Vision House Museum in perpetuity for a donation of $120 or two days of labor.
Please give me a call for further information!
Thank you for your interest in my life’s work.
-DL
Vision House Museum
Finster: A Film about Howard Finster's Legacy
An early video shot by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. It captures my enthusiasm for the Howard Finster Vision House Museum.
A tour of the Howard Finster Vision House Museum. The entire video shows the HFVHM Campus. Enjoy!
Professor Randy Simmons interviews David at the West Kentucky Community and Technical School about Howard Finster during a touring exhibit of the Howard Finster Vision House Museum collection.
While Andy Wilson, Howard Finster’s grandson, is recreating his youth spent working out in this room at the DLG studio house on the Howard Finster Vision House Museum campus, he does not notice the flying orbs.
When you watch this video you will notice that there are over 20 flying orbs. I showed this to an Astro Physicist and he said the properties of dust do not explain the orbs. He couldn’t say they are ghosts but if after watching this you have another reasonable explanation I’d like to hear it.
Video shot on location at Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens, cira 1981.
Press
- NY Times - "Saving a Folk Artist’s Paradise, Lost to Weeds and Ruin, Is a Tangled Affair"
- Los Angeles Times - "Clashing visions of ‘Paradise’"
- Associated Press - "Home Turned Into Museum Honors Folk Artist"
- Atlanta Journal Constitution - "Howard Finster Vision House Opens"
- Florida Tech - "Howard Finster Exhibition Opens at Florida Tech’s Foosaner Art Museum Nov. 14"
- Chicago Tribune - "Howard Finster hits the Road"
- The Southern Illinoisan - "Museum opens at former home of folk artist Howard Finster"
- Atlanta Magazine - "Paradise Regained"
- RockPop Gallery - "Cover Story: R.E.M.'s "Reckoning" & Talking Heads' "Little Creatures", covers by Rev. Howard Finster"
- "Envisioning Howard Finster: The Religion and Art of a Stranger from Another ..."
- Counterforces - "Howard Finster House"
- Patch - "R.E.M might have broken up, but Finster lives on in Long Grove!"
- Patch -"Last Howard Finster Lecture Hosted By David Leonardis - This Friday Night in Long Grove"
- David Leonardis on Howard Finster: American Visionary Folk Artist
- Down South Today - "Celebrating Howard Finster: Finster Fest Remembers The Great Folk Artist"
- Urban Art Antiques - "Messages in Art: Exhibit Recalls Life of Howard Finster"