Veryl Goodnight

Veryl Goodnight (Born January 26, 1947) is a sculptor currently living near San Juan National Forest in Colorado. Her sculptures of horses have achieved international acclaim. She is best known for her piece The Day the Wall Came Down, a tribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall given as a gift from the United States to Germany in 1998.

Early life

Veryl was born in Ashland, Ohio, on January 26, 1947, but her family moved to Lakewood, Colorado when she was only a few weeks old. As a young child living in the West, she fell in love with horses. Her parents could not afford to buy her one of her own, but Veryl continued to think and dream about horses. When she was very little she would sculpt horses out of snow.¹ She received from her parents her first set of professional paints when she was in third grade, and soon her home was filled with equine drawings and paintings.²

Education

In 1965, Veryl had the opportunity for a scholarship to study art at the University of Colorado at Boulder,² but declined because she did not wish to study abstract art, which was the predominant form being taught at that time. She attended business school in Denver instead. During her 20s she held a steady job as a secretary while she continued to study art in her spare time. Her mentors included artists James Disney, Ned Jacob, Ken Bunn, and Jon Zahourek. She learned painting, bronze sculpture, and horse anatomy and began making and selling sculptures for a living.

The Day the Wall Came Down

Veryl’s best-known work, "The Day the Wall Came Down"", is a famous monument to freedom. It features five horses jumping over the rubble of the Berlin Wall. There are two copies of the sculpture. The first, finished in 1997, is located at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.³ The second, finished in 1998, was given as a gift from the United States of America to Germany and is located at the Allied Museum in Berlin.³ Each sculpture weighs approximately seven tons and measures 30 feet long by 18 feet wide by 12 feet high.⁴

References

1. Roberts, Honi. Creative Rider. The Trail Rider. 2005; 16: 46-55.
2. Reynolds, Gretchen. All the Pretty Horses. Southwest Art. 2006; July issue: 159-163.
3. http://www.verylgoodnight.com/PC.html
4. Kadash-Swan, Kathy. Freedom Horses. Western Horseman. 1999; January issue: 100-106.