Joseph Paul Vorst
American, 1897–1947
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Joseph Paul Vorst was a German-American visual artist whose work is owned or has been shown by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery, the New York World’s Fair, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery, the Smithsonian, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the St. Louis Art Museum.
He was born June 19, 1897 in Essen, Germany. He studied at the Folkwang Schule in Hagen before serving in World War I, from which he received a permanent limp. He studied art at the National Academy of Berlin with Max Lieberman and Max Slevogt, and was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1924. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1930, settling in Missouri near his cousins in Ste. Genevieve. He married Lina Weller on June 15, 1935 in St. Louis, MO.
He taught art in St. Louis and did much public work for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Among other locations Vorst was art director at Jefferson College. According to an article on him in the LDS Improvement Era written by William Mulder he assisted full-time LDS missionaries in St. Louis extensively in sharing the gospel with more people.
His He also exhibited his work in both the Deseret Gym art room and the Springville Art Museum. An exhibition featuring his life and work was hosted by the LDS Church History Museum in 2017/2018 in Salt Lake City, UT.
Vorst died of an aneurysm in St. Louis on October 15, 1947.