Sponsored by: Lucy Dalton, George and Mary Lee Fischer, David and Marlene Grissom, The Kane Fund, Vivianne Lake, J. D. and Barbara Nichols, Doreen Lyn Ovca, Don and Libby Parkinson, Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, Harry and Judith Shapira, William and Mary Stone, William and Lindy Street, Sutherland Foundation, Inc. – Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, Dace Brown Stubbs and Dr. William King Stubbs, Patricia Vairin, Daniel and Margaret Woodside.
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. 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.
In 2002, Marvin Finn’s folk art went public. Dozens of owners of Finn’s art presented their originals to a 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.
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.”