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VERNON GOODALE VOELz
1920—1994
Be assured of the ardent prayers of the Universal House ofjustice in the Holy Shrines for the progress of the soul of Mr. Vernon Voelz throughout the worlds of God. Kindly also assure his dear family and friends of its prayers for the consolation of their hearts. The services which Mr. Voelz rendered as a pioneer in Brazil and also in the United States are warmly remembered.
Department of the Secretariat July 14, 1994
“ culptor Vernon Voelz Molded His
Messages” was the caption to the article that appeared in the Sarasota Herald Trilmne announcing his passing on July 11, 1994. He died at the age ofseventy—four in Gainesville, Florida, where he had resided for the last eight months of his life. For forty years he lived in Sarasota, Florida, where he and his wife, Mary, helped to establish the first Bahá’í Assembly in the area. For many years Vernon served as its chairman. In addition to his wife he is survived by three daughters and five grandchildren.
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In the sophisticated arts community of Sarasota, he became a well-known and highly respected artist and metal sculptor“an artist’s artist.n While most ofhis works are in private collections, a number form a permanent part of public buildings in the area. In addition to numerous Florida cities, his work has been exhibited in Washington DC and New York City. He also lectured and gave demonstrations in colleges and universities. He was known as a Bahá’í, and each of his works not only bore his insignia but also the Bahá’í year in which it was created.
During the Ten Year Crusade he and his family pioneered to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Vernon assisted in the purchase of Brazil’s first Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds, and he helped establish the Bahá’í Publishing Trust there. He also held art classes and exhibited silver designs.
Born on January 16, 1920, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he was the youngest of five Children of Louis and Genevieve Voelz.98 His mother and maternal grandparents became believers in Chicago, Illinois, where the Faith was first mentioned in the \West,"9 while his father and paternal grandmother became Bahá’ís in the city of Kenosha, the second oldest Bahá’í community in America. All his parents and grandparents became believers within the first ten years of the Bahá’í Faith in America. His paternal grandmother, Mrs. Emma Voelz, married Henry Goodale, a Bahá’í from Chicago who served on its first Spiritual Assembly.
In 1912 Henry and Emma Goodale invited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá t0 Kenosha, offering
98 See “In Memoriam,” 77M Balm"! World, vol. XIX, p. 637.
"9 The building in which the name of Bahá’u’lláh was first mentioned in America in 1893 at the Colombian Exposition during the Congress ofReligions is the same that now houses the Art Institute of Chicago from which Vernon graduated.
THE BAHA’I’ WORLD
Vernon Gaodale Vorlz
the upper apartment of their home to the Master and His party, which they occupied for a day and a half. The Goodales vacated their quarters during this time; however, Emma returned to cook for the Master and the other guests. Vernon did not know any of his grandparents as all were deceased prior to his birth, Emma passing away one month earlier.
Throughout the years Vernon’s parents maintained a high level of Bahá’í activity that resulted in the complete devotion of all their children. Of his childhood Vernon
WI‘OICZ
'Ihe years of education through grade and high school were years that gave me a tremendous consciousness of the world. Our home was frequented by people of all walks of life. Among them were scholars, writers, artists and architects; and it was during that time that I had contact with Horace Holley, Mark Tobey and Charles Morgan, three Bahá’ís outstanding in the field
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IN MEMORIAM 1992—1997 161
of writing, painting and architecture. 'Ihe impressions made upon me by these men assumed great importance in orienting my thinking toward art.
Vernon showed an artistic ability in his early years. As a youth he began to make plaques of the Master’s profile. After serving in World War II, whiIe married and with one child, he enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago from which he graduated in 1952 receiving a Foreign Travel Fellowship which enabled him to go to Mexico.
In 1968 the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States requested Vernon to make the awards that were presented at the Bahá’í Human Right Awards Banquet held in Washington DC. The design he created was very unique, offering Visually the concept that as God has ordered the universe and permitted man to be sustained Within it, “Human Rights are God—given Rights.” Over the next few years the National Spiritual Assembly asked Vernon to make additional awards.
An art writer for the St. Petersburg Times (Florida) wrote in 1963:
Voelz assumes an almost unique position in contemporary art. In a period which has been called “The Age of Anxiety” he insists upon expressing personal joy. In an age without faith he still discerns positive forces which can bring “an era ofpeace and justice.”
About the same time, an art writer for the Sarasota Herald Tribune noted:
VoeIz long noted for his extra—ordinary inventiveness and technical ability has a unique outlook regarding his work. He is a very serious sculptor, and he works extremely hard in exploring new avenues of expression through form and through experimentation with
materials. Subjects are important to him and he has a close affinity to nature and its manifestations in movement and in the abstract qualities Ofnatural form. But he has a finely developed sense of humor and is capable of exercising it at no expense to the seriousness of his purpose.
A professor of art at Brandeis University wrote:
In the case OfVernon Voelz’s sculptures, I believe I can say I know why I like them. They are doing something rather rare and valuable. In Mr. Voelz’s sculptures we have a sophisticated expression of feeling about things outside art, a skilled and original comment on the World around us. It can enhance the scope of out visual experience.
In a number of his pieces Vernon used kinetics and introduced the element of
sound. Lauretttz Voe/z
