Maps & Legends:
Works from the Collection
of Michael Stipe
OAF New York
December 1–5, 2021
MARCH is pleased to share Maps & Legends: Works from the Collection of Michael Stipe curated by Phillip March Jones. Featuring works by Howard Finster, R.A. Miller, Juanita Rogers, and Leroy Person, among others, the presentation will be on view from March 3–6, 2022 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W 18th Street, New York, NY.
Michael Stipe introduced me to Howard Finster in 1996. I was fifteen years old.
More precisely, while driving across the Southern United States in a passenger van, two friends told me the story of a preacher turned artist who was building a garden filled with the “inventions of mankind” amid thousands of paintings of heaven, hell, aliens, and spaceships. They had first heard about Howard Finster from an R.E.M. music video filmed at the artist’s home…read more
“I have always been interested in people living on the fringes. In the South, they are not only tolerated but often honored and embraced.”
– Michael Stipe
Howard Finster
Thank God for an Empty Cross, 1983
Tractor enamel on panel with artist frame
24 x 36 inches
Howard Finster
Album Sketch, 1983
Ink and graphite on paper
7.25 x 4 inches
Claudia Keep
Waves, 2021
Oil on cradled wood panel
16 x 20 inches
Claudia Keep
Piece of Sky on Tompkins Avenue, 2020
Oil on masonite panel
10 1/2 x 9 inches
“I don’t think of myself—and never have thought of myself—as a collector, but I have bought things over the years that I found inspiring and wanted to live with. That became, over the course of my long life, quite a collection. The idea of being able to share it with people is really thrilling for me.”
– Michael Stipe, ARTnews, 2022
Thornton Dial
Untitled, c. 1990s
Charcoal, graphite and watercolor on paper
22 x 30 inches
Dilmus Hall
Untitled, n.d.
Colored pencil, pencil, and pen on paper
8.5 x 11 inches
Dilmus Hall
Untitled, n.d.
Colored pencil, pencil, and pen on paper
13.75 x 17.25 inches
Ted Gordon
Untitled, 1980
Ink on card
8 x 5.5 inches
James Billie Lemming
Untitled, n.d.
Housepaint on wood with Sun-Maid Raisin lid
13 x 30 x .5 inches
Juanita Rogers
Untitled, n.d.
Paint and graphite on paper
11 x 17 inches
Juanita Rogers
Porky Chop-Chop, n.d.
Graphite and paint on paper
8.75 x 11.75 inches
Inquire
Bessie Harvey
Untitled, n.d.
Paint on wood with marble, shells and stones
14.5 x 6 x 3 inches
“I think there’s an acceptance and understanding across the South that might surprise people. For people who take their own path and people who choose to live on the fringe or to follow certain urges, it seems like there’s an acceptance here that is unwritten and [different from] other issues and other concerns that are often associated with the South. There’s a tolerance within what we think of as a very intolerant place for people to be who they are and to allow for that, and that’s something that I don’t think has ever been really fully understood.”
– Michael Stipe, ARTnews, 2022
Eddie Owens Martin
Untitled, n.d.
Gouache, watercolor and ink on paper
8.5 x 11 inches
Eddie Owens Martin
Untitled, n.d.
Gouache, watercolor and ink on paper
8.5 x 11 inches
Inquire
“It is undeniable that Michael’s interest in the work helped put it on the national stage.”
–Andy Nasisse
Jimmy Lee Sudduth
Untitled (Toto), n.d.
Clay and paint on wood
31 x 25.5 x 1.5 inches
Maps & Legends: Works from the Collection of Michael Stipe
Curated by Phillip March Jones
OAF New York
March 3–6, 2022
Maybe he’s caught in the legend
Maybe he’s caught in the mood
Maybe these maps and legends
Have been misunderstood
Michael Stipe introduced me to Howard Finster in 1996. I was fifteen years old.
More precisely, while driving across the Southern United States in a passenger van, two friends told me the story of a preacher turned artist who was building a garden filled with the “inventions of mankind” amid thousands of paintings of heaven, hell, aliens, and spaceships. They had first heard about Howard Finster from an R.E.M. music video filmed at the artist’s home. This somewhat hyperbolic game of telephone led me to Finster’s doorstep one year later and ultimately changed the course of my life. Artists, musicians, and writers are always sharing influences and making introductions to like-minded folks, but some have the power to do so on a different scale. Andy Nasisse, an artist and former U.G.A. professor, states it more plainly: “It is undeniable that Michael’s interest in the work helped put it on the national stage.”
In the early 1980s, Michael Stipe was an art student at the University of Georgia in Athens. His friend and professor, Art Rosenbaum, describes the local art and music scene of the time as “a kind of trading-off of vibes” and characterized by a general willingness among faculty and students to accept other aesthetics or ways of art-making. This was certainly true of Stipe who was quick to recognize and embrace the talents of his adopted home. Through introductions made by a community of friends and mentors including Rosenbaum and Nasisse, but also, Jim Herbert, Roger Manley, Tom Patterson, and Judy McWillie, Stipe met artists across the region, occasionally acquiring their works. In a recent phone call, he describes how these objects made their way into his life: “I bought things that I liked but never thought of myself as a collector. It was what was available. At first, I couldn’t afford art books, but I was able to travel and meet people. I remember J.B. Murray giving me some magic water in a bottle so that I could read scripture like he did. He told me that the best way home in the dark is the way you know. Back in art school, my friends and I would sometimes end long druggy nights by driving to sit and stare at R.A. Miller’s hill behind the house. It had three or four hundred whirligigs; it was unbelievable.” Rosenbaum also remembers a birthday party they attended together for Dilmus Hall, immortalized in one of the professor’s paintings, and Manley recalls taking Michael to see Clyde Jones, Vollis Simpson, and other artists in North Carolina. And has the pictures to prove it.
Stipe’s motivation to meet artists feels both curious and genuine: “I have always been interested in people living on the fringes. In the South, they are not only tolerated but often honored and embraced.” From the beginning, Stipe and R.E.M. translated their natural affinity
for these artists and their shared geography into album covers, music videos, and objects that used works and environments by Southern artists including Howard Finster, R.A. Miller, Juanita Rogers, and Leroy Person, among others. Radio Free Europe was filmed at Paradise Garden in 1983; one year later, Jim Herbert directed Left of Reckoning, an experimental long-format music video, at R.A. Miller’s Whirligig Farm in Rabbittown, Georgia; Juanita Roger’s drawings were printed on the back of Life’s Rich Pageant, and so on. The cumulative effect of these projects was two-fold: the introduction of new artists to tens of thousands of people across the globe and an implicit transmission of the palpable appeal of a hidden South personified by artists and musicians who were both firmly grounded in the region but divorced from its problematic and stereotyped reputation.
Taking its title from an R.E.M. song dedicated to Howard Finster, Maps and Legends situates works from the collection of Michael Stipe within the larger context of the modern South and features paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Thornton Dial, ST. EOM, Dilmus Hall, Bessie Harvey, Howard Finster, R.A. Miller, Royal Robertson, Juanita Rogers, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, and other artists encountered by Stipe during his wanderings across the region.
Selected Press

Inquire
Howard Finster
Thank God for an Empty Cross, 1983
Tractor enamel on panel with artist frame
24 x 36 inches

Inquire
Howard Finster
Album Sketch, 1983
Ink and graphite on paper
7.25 x 4 inches

Inquire
Thornton Dial
Untitled, c. 1990s
Charcoal, graphite and watercolor on paper
22 x 30 inches

Inquire
Dilmus Hall
Untitled, n.d.
Colored pencil, pencil, and pen on paper
8.5 x 11 inches

Inquire
Dilmus Hall
Untitled, n.d.
Colored pencil, pencil, and pen on paper
13.75 x 17.25 inches

Inquire
Ted Gordon
Untitled, 1980
Ink on card
8 x 5.5 inches

Inquire
James Billie Lemming
Untitled, n.d.
Housepaint on wood with Sun-Maid Raisin lid
13 x 30 x .5 inches

Inquire
Juanita Rogers
Untitled, n.d.
Paint and graphite on paper
11 x 17 inches

Inquire
Juanita Rogers
Porky Chop-Chop, n.d.
Graphite and paint on paper
8.75 x 11.75 inches

Inquire
Bessie Harvey
Untitled, n.d.
Paint on wood with marble, shells and stones
14.5 x 6 x 3 inches

Inquire
Eddie Owens Martin
Untitled, n.d.
Gouache, watercolor and ink on paper
8.5 x 11 inches

Inquire
Eddie Owens Martin
Untitled, n.d.
Gouache, watercolor and ink on paper
8.5 x 11 inches

Inquire
Leroy Person
Untitled, n.d.
Oil pastel on paper
11 x 13.5 inches

Inquire
Leroy Person
Untitled, n.d.
Oil pastel on paper
13.25 x 15 inches

Inquire
Jimmy Lee Sudduth
Untitled (Toto), n.d.
Clay and paint on wood
31 x 25.5 x 1.5 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Waves, 2021
Oil on cradled wood panel
16 x 20 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Spring Morning, 2021
Oil on masonite
12 x 10 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
J’s Garage, 2021
Oil on masonite panel
10 x 8 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
8:04 AM Holiday Inn Express, 2019
Oil on masonite panel
10 x 10 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Morning, Vienna, 2020
Oil on masonite panel
12 x 9 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Virginia Rose, 2020
Oil on masonite panel
8 x 10 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Bedroom, Bedstuy II, 2021
Oil on masonite panel
12 x 10 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Leaving Richmond, 2021
Oil on masonite panel
10 x 12 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Late Night Rain, 2021
Oil on masonite panel
12 x 10 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Rain, On the way to Southwest Harbor, 2019
Oil on masonite panel
10 x 8 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Piece of Sky on Tompkins Avenue, 2020
Oil on masonite panel
10 1/2 x 9 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Manhattan, Early Evening, 2021
Oil on masonite panel
10 1/4 x 7 3/4 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Striped Pillow, 2021
Oil on masonite panel
10 x 12 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Caterpillar, 2021
Oil on masonite panel
9 x 11 3/4 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Morning Light, Quiet Crush, 2019
Oil on masonite panel
10 x 8 inches

Inquire
Claudia Keep
Helicopter Over the East River, 2019
Oil on masonite panel
12 x 9 inches