Howard Finster

Howard Finster was born in 1916 in Valley Head, Alabama, where he dropped out of school in the sixth grade. As a young man he moved to northwest Georgia and became a Baptist minister. He led a number of congregations until retiring in 1965, when he became a bicycle, lawn mower, and television-repairman.
Before his death Howard completed more than Forty thousand works of art, and exhibited his work in more shows than any other living American artist. Howard Finster died Oct. 22, 2001. His body is buried in Silver Hill Cemetery in Chattooga County.
Howard Finster
Basil Wolverton

Longtime aficionados of Basil Wolverton are aware of the importance of his work. He was a Christian minister; quiet, humble, generous to a fault, morally and socially conservative, always ready with a word of encouragement or humor. Wolverton created some of the most brilliant Christian art in modern times, and influenced a generation of lowbrow artists. The key to understanding these images pened by Wolverton is an understanding of his Christian convictions. The threads of Wolverton's creativity and his faith are Inexorably woven together. The remaining years of his life were devoted to illustrating Bible Stories. In six volumes from Genesis to Samuel, Wolverton adapted the text of the Bible for simplicity and clarity and provided hundreds of b&w illustrations for the work. These six volumes were published from 1961-68 by Ambassador College

Wolverton died in 1978
Basil Wolverton
Anderson Johnson

Anderson Johnson the son of a sharecropper was born in Lunenburg County Virginia in 1915. At The age of eight Anderson, while at work on his fathers cornfield, experienced a personal connection to The Lord in what he described as a vision. The desire of his heart at that time was to begin to communicate the word of God. Anderson spent most of his childhood working, and little of it in school, Anderson learned to play guitar, piano and began drawing. Anderson was however well versed in Biblical studies and by the time he was twelve Anderson began serving as a roving preacher going from church to church to communicate the word of God. At the age of sixteen Anderson accepted the call to become pastor of a small congregation in New Jersey. Later in life Johnson began traveling throughout the United States preaching, and playing his guitar in churches and on street corners. In the late1970's Johnson contracted a paralyzing illness that partially immobilized an arm and a leg. Johnson then decided to return to his family home on Ivy Avenue in Newport News, Virginia. Johnson was partially healed of his paralysis and turned his home into his into what he called his "faith mission," and studio where he began painting and creating art as an integral part of his worship and held services for anyone willing to listen. His Faith Mission was destroyed yet most of the murals with which it was decorated have been saved. Johnson died in 1998.
Anderson Johnson
Norbert Kox

Norbert Kox was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1945, on the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. At seventeen he joined the army, where in his spare time he taught himself not only to paint, but to drink. After his stint in the service, he continued to drink heavily while working on custom cars and motorcycles for a living. He became a notorious member of the "Outlaws" biker gang, but "hit bottom" by his thirtieth birthday after a drug overdose. He swore off alcohol, gave away most of his possessions, and joined a conservative Pentecostal Christian group. As he studied the Scriptures, his perceptions of Christianity changed dramatically. Kox could no longer belong to any organized religious group; he now understood them to be the deception of evil forces. He saw pagan religious practice at the heart of this false representation of Christianity. For the next ten years he meditated, painted, and lived by himself in the woods near Suring, Wisconsin. Here he built a personal chapel and a "Gospel Road" with scripture-based messages leading through the forest. In 1985, he returned to Green Bay, studying religion and art at a branch of the University of Wisconsin, after which he took up painting full-time as his way of life.
Norbert Kox
Linda Bruton

Middle Georgia visionary painter Linda Bruton never planned to be an artist. But in 1992, after losing a grandchild, separating from her husband, and undergoing months of radiation therapy, she promised God that she would find a way to witness for Him. To her surprise, her witness was art. Her vibrant drawings and paintings mirror her faith and arise mostly from dreams. "I go to sleep and see a picture," she says, "and wake up and start to work." In her mid-40's, Linda grew up the "underdog" in a family of 18 children, and feels passionately about helping others. She worked in nursing homes for many years, and currently spends much of each day helping children; she finds that her drawings and paintings make the Bible more understandable to them. She hopes that her art will reach everyone, young and old alike, believing that her pictures "portray the messages people need to know about." Linda typically works with permanent markers and acrylic paint on wood, mirror, and posterboard.

Linda Bruton
Frank Bruno

Frank was born in March 1925 on a ranch 50 miles south of Tombstone, Arizona. As a child, he suffered from severe asthma and was forced to spend days indoors, where he found refuge in drawing.
This was a time when America was in the grip of a crushing depression - even a scrap of paper was scarce. To provide him with drawing paper, his mother, always a source of encouragement and a great improviser, would collect used papers from butcher shops, wash off the blood and dry them under a blazing Arizona sun. Each new supply of paper would spark marathon drawing sessions lasting throughout the entire day. Obsessed with the military, it was always scenes of war, aircraft, ships, ground troops fighting, marching supply columns - every conceivable scenario, covering every square inch of paper.
Two months after Pearl Harbor, he was able to sneak past the physical exam and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Bruno views the war years as the only time in his life when he felt truly alive. Before his 18th birthday, he had crossed the International Date Line four times, the Equator seven times, and stepped over the dying homeless laying on the bettlenut-stained sidewalks of Bombay, India. 1947 : Armed with the GI Bill, he attempted to get an education in art, but was deemed untalented and was refused admission by two of Los Angeles most prestigious art schools, Chouinard's and Art Center. He now sees this as the best thing that ever happened to him.
Frank Bruno
Rudolph Bostic

Rudolph Valentino Bostic is a 54-year-old American (self-taught) folk artist from Savannah, Georgia. Rudolph works as a janitor by day, and in the evening he brings to life visual representations of historical Biblical events. His vibrant Biblical images are rendered in enamel and house-paint on cardboard. Bostic draws his inspiration from many sources, and enjoys studying the works of the old masters such as Rembrandt and Michelangelo. The combination of these influences has produced a dynamic tension of color and movement on Bostic's cardboard canvases.
Rudolph Bostic
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AA Graphic Design

Bachelors degree in Art Education.

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