Howard Finster (1916–2001) was an American artist famed for his often bizarre paintings and sculptures of angels, aliens, and historical figures such as George Washington. Finster was a Baptist minister and used visions that he believed were divine inspirations from God to create Paradise Garden, a folk art sculpture garden dedicated to his life and work which included more than 50,000 original works of icons such as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Mickey Mouse. Finster stopped attending school in the sixth grade and never received an art education, and instead began preaching at the age of 16. In the late 1940s, Finster started constructing his garden installation work, the inventions of mankind, in which he hoped to make models of everything humans had ever invented set within a Garden of Eden space. The artist was prolific throughout his career and made commissioned album covers for both the Talking Heads and R.E.M, and also participated in the Venice Biennale in 1984. Today, his works are in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Finster died on October 22, 2001 in Rome, GA.