German-born Joseph Vorst came from Essen (born June 19, 1897). His teacher was the leading German impressionist Max Liebermann (1847-1935), who was the champion of French impressionism in Berlin. He had traveled to Barbizon and Paris to see paintings by Manet first hand, including In the Conservatory, which made its way to Berlin. Later Vorst's home town of Essen would acquire a collection of modern art in 1921, which became the Museum Folkwang, one of the earliest of its kind.

Most likely to escape the Nazis, Vorst made his way to Missouri; we know that he was a member of the American Artists Congress and he signed the famous "Call" in 1936 at the group's first congress, the left-wing organization that stood up to combat fascism. Surely he would have known Joe Jones (1909-1963), the representative on the National Executive Committee from St. Louis who was later reprimanded for producing Communist propaganda at his art classes for homeless youth set up in the St. Louis Court House. Vorst also knew Thomas Hart Benton, called his friend and associate.

In 1936 Vorst exhibited Missouri Mules at the Art Institute of Chicago. His paintings Drifters on the Mississippi and Picking Strawberries were on display there in the two subsequent annual exhibitions. Then in 1939, Vorst's Drought was shown at the Corcoran biennial and on a grander scale, many more viewers saw his Madonna of the Tiff Miners at the New York World's Fair that year. During what amounted to a "peak year" for Vorst, his work entitled Fear was part of the art exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. At the same time, Vorst was working on a mural in the Vandalia, Missouri Post Office called Corn Harvest. In 1940 Vorst took on another decorative project for the Paris, Arkansas Post Office (Rural Arkansas). One further post office mural came in 1942 - Time Out - in Bethany, Missouri.

Vorst was honored with one-man shows in New York, Washington and St. Louis. He re-exhibited Picking Strawberries in 1940 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a year later his After Flood (Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, Chicago) appeared there. In 1942 Vorst showed Refugees at the Whitney Annual and a year later his Good Lord Gives Peace was on view at the Corcoran Gallery and at the Art Institute of Chicago. For two more years Vorst submitted paintings to the Whitney: Family Festival (1945) and The Keeper (1946). Vorst also worked as an illustrator for Esquire and executed lithographs. He died in 1947 at the age of fifty. The St. Louis Art Museum has Vorst's painting, For Thine is the Kingdom.

Submitted by Richard H. Love and Michael Preston Worley, Ph.D.

Carl Vorst, the son of the artist, sent the following in September 2002:

The artist "raised major ire in Paris, Arkansas when his post office mural selected for placement in that town met with major outrage from some of the town's people who claimed that it showed a backward view of Arkansas that made it the butt of jokes. He had painted the mural depicting a gleaming Arkansas farm, which was met with glee. He also had a colorful past in Germany before he fled to the States to leave the oppression forming in his native country of Germany.

He also won prizes in competition at the Chicago and Kansas City art institutes as well as at other major locations."

Born in Essen, Germany, Joseph Vorst was a portrait and mural painter, block printer, and illustrator. He studied at the Folkwang Academy in Essen and the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin.

He settled in St. Louis, Missouri, and exhibited widely including the Corcoran Gallery biennials, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Kansas City Art Institute.


Source:
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art