Kentucky-MARVIN FINN- Pot Bellied Pig- African Amer.

Marvin Finn didn’t have much as a child growing up in Clio, Alabama. Born in 1913, the son of a sharecropper, he had to leave school in the first grade to go to work in the fields. His father often whittled on wood and from an early age he would stand alongside him to learn carving skills from him. He also liked drawing, painting and building.

There were ten boys and two girls in his family, so he didn’t have any toys except what he tried to make for himself. As Marvin Finn recalls those hard times, he remembers his most valuable possession, “I had my imagination.”

Marvin came to Louisville after the outbreak of World War II. After he married in 1952, he continued to make toys for the enjoyment of his five children. His wife, Helen Breckenridge, used to help him by cutting out the toy shapes he had drawn with an electric saw.

Over the years he has made thousands of roosters, chickens, geese and other barnyard animals reminiscent of life on the farm. He has also constructed toy cranes, shovels and bulldozers like those he watched while working as a laborer and at odd jobs in Louisville. After his wife died in 1966, he quit his odd jobs and became very prolific in his creation of toys to work out his deeply felt grief.

It wasn’t until 1972 that a friend persuaded him to make his first public display at the Kentuckiana Hobby and Gift Show. Sales increased with each show as people were drawn to his whimsical work. In 1976, an art collector purchased the entire inventory in Marvin’s four-room Clarksdale apartment. Marvin Finn garnered many admirers, including Phyllis George who established the Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation (now Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft) in 1981. Marvin Finn has been a mainstay in both the collections and promotions of the organization since its first gallery opening in 1984.

In 2002, Marvin Finn’s folk art went public. Louisville’s then mayor, David Armstrong, launched a public art initiative through the Advisory Committee on Public Amenities. The committee selected Marvin Finn as the artist whose work would be represented. Dozens of owners of Finn’s art presented their originals to the committee and 32 pieces were selected as models for the public art exhibit. Colorful steel renditions, some as tall as nine feet, were cut out of half-inch thick steel and painted with graffiti proof paint by a cadre of artists mimicking the unique colors and patterns of Finn’s work. Eight months after the project was hatched, the “Flock of Finns” landed in downtown Louisville. Unlike other city public art sculptures, the flock migrated seasonally to different parts of the city to the joy and amusement of tourists and residents alike.

Marvin Finn is best known for his haughty, fun and imaginative roosters. The systematic use of bold stripes, dots and dashes painted on scrap wood against a solid background in unconventional color combinations is his signature style. Some scholars have linked his worked to the West African art of the Yoruba tradition. Marvin Finn says, “I just do what my mind tells me to do. Maybe the good Lord plants these things in my mind. When I leave here and meet the good Lord, I ain’t never going to quit making toys.

Check out my other listings and ebay store.  I am selling a large collection of Kentucky Folk art, Art, Antiques and books.  Including Marvin Finn,Tim Lewis, Edd Lambdin, Sherman Lambdin, Shirley Lambdin Carl McKenzie, Garland and Minnie Adkins, Harry Jennings, Henry York and many more sculptures, carvings and canes.  New items listed regularly.