Milford Zornes (AM 1908-2008) � Death Valley and the Paniments� Watercolor, 1954, 11 x 22 �, signed and dated in the lower right margin. This piece is in excellent condition.

Milford Zornes was born in 1908. As a twenty-year-old in 1928, he went on a bit of a �walk about." He hitch-hiked across America from his native West, worked on the docks of New York, and after earning his ticket, shipped out for Europe. After his return to America, he settled in Los Angeles, studying art with F. Tolles Chamberlin at the Otis Art Institute and Millard Sheets at the Scripps College. By 1933, he was receiving awards for his watercolors which he produced for the P.W.A.P. art project. He won a one-man show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
One of his watercolors was chosen by the Roosevelts to hang in the White House. Over the decade of the thirties, he was active in the California Water Color movement, and was president of the California Water Color Society. He was drafted after the outbreak of WWII, and was assigned to be an official artist in the China, India, and Burma theaters of operation. Most of the works he produced in this period were turned over to the Pentagon, but he did have a one man show in Bombay. After the war, he settled in Claremont, California, and spent much time painting, teaching, and traveling. He invented a traveling classroom, taking his watercolor students to exotic travel destinations for his painting workshops. In 1963, Zornes purchased the former home and studio of Maynard Dixon in Salt Lake City to use as a location for regular watercolor workshops. He purchased the home from Edith Hamlin, widow of the famed artist.