Joseph Vorst
(1897-1947)

Cattle Buying
Oil on Masonite, 1938
48 x 48 inches
Study for the Post Office Mural, "Rural Arkansas", Paris, Arkansas
$42,000 (includes lithograph)

Joseph Vorst worked for the WPA during the 1930's and painted three post office murals; in Bethany and Vandalia, Mssouri and in Paris, Arkansas. In Paris, Arkansas, local leaders objeted to Vorst's portrayal of "Rural Arkansas." Vorst met with local leaders and changed the content from a lone farmer walking behind a plow to a composite scene of up-to-date farming, stockbreeding, and manufacturing. The mural was installed in the Paris, Arkansas Post Office in June of 1940.

Literature: Wall to Wall America: A Cultural History of Post-Office Murals in the Great Depression, by Karel Ann Marling.

"Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal" by Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz, Life Magazine, December 4, 1939.

Return to Vorst images