Milford Zornes

Zornes married Gloria Codd in 1935 and had one son, Franz. In 1942 he married Patricia Mary Palmer, and had one daughter, Maria Patricia. He died from congestive heart failure on February 24, 2008, in his Claremont, California home. He was 100.

For many years, Zornes taught watercolor painting workshops in China, Alaska, Mexico, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Hawaii and many other locations. A longtime friend of Edith Hamlin, he purchased her summer home in 1963 as a base for workshops in Utah. His subject matter is often drawn from his extensive world travels, although Western landscapes are a favorite topic.

An active member of the California Water Color Society, he served as its president in 1941–42, when its annual exhibition was shown in San Francisco as well as Los Angeles.

Through his association with Millard Sheets and other Southern California watercolorists, Zornes became active in the "California Style" movement. During the Great Depression he and his colleagues began painting primarily in watercolor because of the medium's versatility and inexpensive cost. Using watercolor and paper instead of oils and canvas made it easy for the impoverished artists to transport their materials easily and paint on site. The immediate drying qualities of the paint allowed for few mistakes, but artists like Zornes mastered the medium. Nevertheless, he used oil-on-canvas for his early New Deal mural commissions for post offices, such as the 1937 29-foot mural in Claremont, California. He also made fine art prints on occasion. He was given a solo show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1933.

James Milford Zornes (January 25, 1908 – February 24, 2008) was an American watercolor artist and teacher known as part of the California Scene Painting movement.