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In an unwavering devotion to nature and the truths and lessons therein, legendary watercolorist Milford Zornes was a silent storyteller. The stillness and quiet of his paintings, however, spoke volumes as he rendered not just a scene but the essential ideas emanating from it. And these ideas could only be captured, he once explained, if you don’t just paint but “take note of its character,” Mr. Zornes was quoted in the Winter 2008 Pomona College Magazine.
“He wanted people to be able to experience a concept. He would look at the landscape and, rather than paint it exactly as it is, he wanted to paint it as a story about that particular area,” said his daughter, Maria Baker. “Rather than just making a duplication, he wanted to enhance it, or accentuate one of the real interesting aspects of it. He wanted to make the story more dramatic.”
Guiding brush on paper—for almost a century—Mr. Zornes searched for the elemental truths in his subject matter, which was frequently drawn from extensively travel around the world.
“Art is the presentation of truth beyond fact and reason. What about all those wonderful poetic happenings—like weather—adding to the impression we get when looking at the mountain? As a painter, you have to translate that into actual form on a canvas,” Mr. Zornes said in the Pomona College Magazine article, “A Conversation With Nature.”
James Milford Zornes, the last living artist in the small but elite group of California Scene Painters, died at the age of 100 at his Claremont home on February 24, 2008.
“He was very focused, very focused. Art was everything,” said his daughter. “I think everything in his life was driven by how he saw the world and how he wanted to get those visions on paper.”
Born in rural Oklahoma on January 25, 1908, Mr. Zornes first learned to draw under the tutelage of his mother, a former schoolteacher, whose mission was to keep her son out of trouble. His family eventually settled in California, where he graduated from San Fernando High School.
Prior to taking art seriously as a profession, Mr. Zornes dabbled in journalism, working as a freelance photographer and writer for Popular Mechanics, Popular Science and Scientific American. Though encouraged to paint by two art teachers with whom he boarded during a period in Santa Maria, he did not yet feel the call toward art as a way of life. He studied engineering for a brief spell, hitchhiked across the country and explored Europe before returning to California and steeping himself into what became his lifelong passion.
Mr. Zornes studied at the Otis Art Institute and under Millard Sheets at Scripps College, graduating from Pomona College in 1934. He became a member of the California Water Color Society, for which he later served as president, the American Watercolor Society and the California Scene Painters, pushing the watercolor medium beyond its traditional boundaries. Along with his artistic colleagues, he painted in new and creative ways, uplifting watercolor from its regard as less worthy than oil painting.
“Originally, watercolor was thought of as a secondary medium, that it was not capable of fulfilling the serious mandate of oil painting,” explained Steve Comba, artist and curator for the Claremont Museum of Art, in an interview last month. “But these artists gained claim to it.” Very quickly, Mr. Zornes achieved notoriety as an artist, exhibiting his paintings around the nation. Exemplifying the profound momentum he experienced early in his career, in the 30s, then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected one his paintings to hang in the White House. His work is also in collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress.
During the 40s, Mr. Zornes was drafted into the US Army and served as an official war artist in China, India and Burma. Seldom seen anymore, most of his WWII art is housed at the Pentagon.
In addition to being a prolific artist, Mr. Zornes was a highly-esteemed professor and art instructor, having taught at Pomona College, Otis Art Institute and the Pasadena School of Fine Arts. He has also conducted workshops around the globe, most recently conducting a watercolor class in Pasadena the day after his 100th birthday. In addition, Mr. Zornes served as the art director for Padua Hills Theater in the 50s and 60s.
“[The world] has lost a very dedicated artist, a very focused artist, somebody who loved sharing art with everybody. He was a wonderful, wonderful teacher,” said his daughter, Ms. Baker. “People talk about his ability to really get across the concepts that he was trying to teach. They’ve lost a very fine teacher.”
Artistic success and recognition did little to inflate the ego of Mr. Zornes, and he remained a modest man throughout his career.
“People say that he was very humble, and humble would be a word I would use,” said his daughter. “He wanted his art to be out front, and not him.”
Mr. Zornes credited his ability and success not to any special talent or intelligence he possessed. Instead, discipline and dedication were extolled for their impact on creating fine work.
“A good painter has no more mental capacity than the next guy—it’s how you spend your time and what you learn to do,” he was quoted in “A Conversation With Nature” in Pomona College Magazine.
Such persevering humility compelled Mr. Zornes to reasonably price his painting, though he could have earned much more from them, said his daughter.
“I think he really wanted people to know and understand his art, and he wanted people to have an opportunity to purchase his art. He never made things so outrageously expensive that people of all income brackets couldn’t afford it,” Ms. Baker explained. “It wasn’t that he felt his art wasn’t valuable, he wanted people to be able to experience an original, and of course he always hoped it was his.”
Ms. Baker recalls asking her father, “Why don’t you sell that painting for more?”
“Well,” she remembers him responding, “the person really liked the painting and I want them to have it.”
As a family man, Mr. Zornes was able and committed to offering his children experiences atypical to most. As an inexhaustible traveler, for example, his children were introduced to a wide range of places, people and experiences.
“[Our childhood] was rich, because we did things that perhaps other kids didn’t do. We were very much exposed to all the arts, not just painting,” his daughter shared, noting the particularly memorable experience of seeing a performance by sitar player, Ravi Shankar, who Mr. Zornes had seen in India during WWII.
“We were exposed to a lot of color, and a lot of art,” she said.
Mr. Zornes dedication to art never abated, despite suffering from the vision-debilitating disease, macular degeneration, for the last two decades. He maintained his commitment to painting each and every day, but relied upon memory and intuition to guide him as his eyesight failed.
“I’ve painted for so long I almost know what the brush is doing whether I can see it or not,” he was quoted in Pomona College Magazine.
And though intimately familiar with landscapes the world over, the California coast and hills remained his favorite areas to behold and paint, even when living in Utah for several decades.
“The whole California scene was very important to him,” Ms. Baker said.
A lifetime of artistic expression brought numerous awards and honors to Mr. Zornes. Among them are the Paul Prescott Barrow Award from Pomona College (1987); “A Most Distinguished Citizen” Award from Southern Utah State College (1988); the David Prescott Burrows Award (1991); the American Artist Achievement Award from American Artist Magazine (1994); National Academician status from the National Academy of Design (1994); and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the Watercolor USA Society (2003).
Artwork by Mr. Zornes is currently on display at the Museum of History and Art in Ontario where the exhibit, “Milford Zornes in Black and White,” an array of 66 black and white works on paper, will run through April 13, 2008. Several of his paintings are also on exhibit at the Claremont Museum of Art’s exhibit, “First Generation: Art in Claremont, 1907-1957,” which will run through April 27, 2008. His work can also be seen locally at the Claremont Post Office, where his “New Deal” mural hangs, The Claremont Colleges and the Chaffey Community Art Association Museum of Art.
Mr. Zornes is survived by his wife of 65 years, Pat Zornes; by his daughter and son-in-law, Maria and Hal Baker; by his son and daughter-in-law, Franz and Marsha Zornes; and by his 6 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
Memorial donations may be made to the Milford and Pat Zornes Art Scholarship Fund. Please address and mail checks to the ELAC (East Los Angeles College) Foundation, c/o Selina Chi, ED, Dean of Development, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park, CA 91754.
With a several lively and well-attended 100th birthday parties having taken place over that last few months, Mr. Zornes’ century of life has been celebrated well. No memorial services are planned.
