Veryl Goodnight | Colorado
A Colorado native, Veryl’s career started as a wildlife painter in the early 1970’s. She began sculpting to educate herself about anatomy. Sculpture dominated her work throughout the late 1900’s while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After returning to Colorado in 2006, painting again became her primary medium.
Veryl completed over 200 sculptures and 20 life size or larger monuments. All of these works have reflected her Western roots. The most notable is “The Day The Wall Came Down,” a seven-ton bronze sculpture consisting of five larger than life-size horses jumping over the fallen Berlin Wall. The United States Air Force delivered this monument to Berlin, Germany in 1998. A sister casting is located at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.
Veryl’s work has been profiled in many books and her work has been repeatedly featured in all major American art magazines. “No Turning Back – the Art of Veryl Goodnight” was published in 2011 to correspond with a retrospective at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2016, she was inducted into The National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas in recognition of lifetime of representing the American West in Art. In 2022, her painting “No Bed of Roses” was selected as the Purchase Award by the Desert Caballeros Museum during Cowgirl Up!
Veryl and her husband, Roger Brooks, live in the mountains of Southwest Colorado. The dramatic landscape and abundant wildlife provide endless inspiration. Her spacious studio is at the north end of the barn, sandwiched between her equine models and a play yard for her canine models.
Professional memberships include Fellow of The National Sculpture Society and Society of Animal Artists.
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