Milford Zornes: An American Artist

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Introduction

The Wildling Art Museum’s exhibition Milford Zornes: An American Artist celebrated the remarkable career of one of California’s most notable artists. A proponent of the California Style of watercolor painting, Zornes gained national acclaim with his vivid colors, expansive brushstrokes, and abstract interpretations of the American landscape. With the assistance of scholar Gordon McClelland, the exhibition consisted of Zornes’ paintings borrowed from various private collections.

James Milford Zornes (1908-2008) was born in Oklahoma in 1908. During the Great Depression, the Zornes family moved to Southern California, where Milford would settle as an artist and teacher. As a young man, Zornes pursued a career in journalism and moved to Santa Maria, California, where he enrolled in Allan Hancock College, then known as Santa Maria Junior College. Upon moving back to Los Angeles, Zornes abandoned writing and picked up a paintbrush.

While attending Scripps College in Claremont, Zornes studied art under Millard Sheets. Working alongside Sheets, Rex Brandt, Phil Dike, George Post, and a number of other California artists, Zornes began painting regional scenes of Los Angeles. No longer able to afford oil paint during the Depression, the low cost and versatility of watercolors enabled Depressionera artists to transport their materials and paint outside. Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight once said, “Arguably, watercolor was the most important medium sustained by American painters struggling with the new demands and untried possibilities of Modernism in the first half of the twentieth century.” The immediate drying qualities of the paint required artists to use quick, expressionistic brushstrokes, and Zornes mastered the medium.

Zornes was soon commissioned to paint under the Federal Art Project of the WPA and began to gain artistic acclaim. As part of the growing Regionalist and American Scene styles of painting, Zornes’ early works championed scenes of everyday people, cityscapes, and life in Depression era America. With the onset of World War II, Zornes joined the war effort as a U.S. Army War Artist and traveled to Burma, China, and India, where he began a lifelong interest in painting exotic landscapes.

Upon settling in Claremont, California, after WWII, Zornes began teaching art as well as continuing to paint. In his watercolors, he began experimenting with abstraction. Influenced by the mov ement of Post- War modern art, Zornes started to focus on line, form, and color, rather than pure representation. “I think in terms of big abstract concern, and I think of detail as an embellishment. I keep constantly in mind the fact that while embellishment is important, still when you begin this process of embellishment, you can also begin the process of deterioration,” said Zornes in the book Milford Zornes: An American Artist by McClelland.

Instead of attempting to capture purely realistic landscapes, Zornes attempted to highlight the striking colors and shapes to portray an alternative American environment. In paintings such as High Seas and Zion in the Summer, Zornes merely hints at form in order to capture the essence of a scene. With a few expressive strokes, he imbues a simple seascape with nuance, atmosphere, and vibrance.

Zornes worked for nearly one hundred years documenting the beauty and evolution of California’s landscape as well as Hawaii, Mexico, Alaska, South America, and Europe. He was also an avid teacher, helping to mentor young artists at schools including University of California at Santa Barbara, Pomona College, Otis Art Institute, and Riverside Art Center.

Zornes’ work captures the surreal beauty of the American landscape, but his paintings are also very much about the process of painting. This exhibition chronicled that achievement, exhibiting thirty artworks done between the years of 1955-2005. The artist not only developed alternative methods of interpreting the natural world but also captured the American landscape with a distinctive voice and poignancy unique to few artists.

Alissa J. Anderson,
Guest Curator

Milford Zornes Checklist

Along the Virgin River, 1963
Mason Molki Collection

Autumn in Utah, 1977
Retroart Collection

Avila, 1958
Mike and Sue Verbal Collection

Big Pines, 1968
Mason Molki Collection

Carmel Cliffs, 1989
McClelland Collection

Cuyama Valley, 1972
McClelland Collection

Cucamonga Peak
Claremont Fine Arts

Desert Rainstorm, 1966
Dorothy Shea Family Collection

Evening Sky, 1972
Mason Molki Collection

Grand Canyon, 2005
Bill Anderson Collection

Grand Canyon on North Rim, 1976
Mason Molki Collection

Green River, Wyoming, 1970
The Knowles Collection

Hawaiian Shoreline, 1980
Steve Young Collection

High Seas, 1969
Donna Vasseghi Collection

In Zion, 1985
McClelland Collection

Louisiana Cypress Swamp, 1988
Jay T. Last Collection

Lytle Creek, Mt. Baldy, 1976
Mason Molki Collection

Northern Coast, 1967
Dorothy Shea Family Collection

Mojave, 1963
McClelland Collection

Morning on the Coast, 1957
Claremont Fine Arts

Morning, High Desert, 1990
McClelland Collection

Morton Day [sic] Fig Tree, 1975
Mason Molki Gallery

Mountain Pass, 1988
Mason Molki Collection

Mt. San Jacinto, 1959
Mason Molki Collection

Point Sol, 1959
Mike and Sue Verbal Collection

Southwest Desert, 1965
Dorothy Shea Family Collection

Superstition Mountain, 1969
Jay T. Last Collection

Virgin River, 1977
Steve Young Collection

Wyoming, 1970
Mason Molki Collection

Zion in the Summer, 1980
Retroart Collection

Past ExhibitRuben MislangMilford Zornes