Last Corn

Lithograph 

by Joseph Paul Vorst (1897-1947)

c1930

Signed in pencil lower right and in the plate lower right. Titled in pencil on reverse. Printed on thick wove paper with tape residue on reverse. Faint mat burn. Currently mounted to mat folder.

Adapted from Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951:

Joseph Paul Vorst was born in Germany on June 19, 1897. He served in World War I, suffering an injury that caused him to limp for the rest of his life. In 1929, Vorst attended the Academy of Arts in Berlin. There he studied under the artists Max Slevogt and Max Libermann. 

In 1930, Vorst immigrated to the United States. He first lived in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, then settled in St. Louis. While living in Missouri, Vorst became a friend and student of Thomas Hart Benton, who influenced his work. He was known for his images of Missouri, especially images of the Missouri mule. Additionally, he was a portraitist who received several commissions, including a portrait of August A. Busch. Vorst was also a printmaker who made lithographs.

During his career, Vorst created artwork as a part of the Works Projects Administration. He created a mural for the Vandalia, Missouri, post office, Corn Harvest, in 1939. This was the first mural he was commissioned to paint by the U.S. Treasury Department. Vorst was a winner of the 1939 48 States Competition and was chosen to create a mural for Paris, Arkansas. His first sketch for the mural, of an African American tenant farmer, was rejected. He then created a new image, Rural Arkansas, which was accepted and then completed in 1940. In 1941, he painted a mural, Time Out, for the post office at Bethany, Missouri.

Vorst was the art director at Thomas Jefferson School in St. Louis and a teacher at the Adult Educational Center at Washington University. He also worked as an illustrator for Esquire magazine.

Joseph Paul Vorst died on October 15, 1947, in Overland, Missouri.