Joseph Paul Vorst

The short and tumultuous life of Joseph Paul Vorst (American, born Germany, 1897-1947) reads like a proxy for the 20th century. Raised in poverty, Vorst lived through two world wars (he fought and was injured as a German solider in World War I). After his immigration, he struggled through the Great Depression, witnessed the rise of the Nazis in Europe, and experienced prejudice against German immigrants in America. Fleeing Germany alone as his renowned teachers were censored and labeled degenerate one by one, he decried fascism and was embraced by artists in America such as Thomas Hart Benton and Joe Jones.He exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Library of Congress, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the New York World¿s Fair, the Kansas City Art Institute/Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Carnegie Institute, the St. Louis City Art Museum, the Dayton Art Institute, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Golden Gate International Exhibition, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and even the White House. These are Vorst¿s museum credits that occurred within a span of ten years in the United States. He also showed in commercial fine art galleries of distinction and historical importance in St. Louis and New York City.