Milford Zornes, California Style

As the Guest Curator of the Wildling Art Museum’s current exhibition, "Milford Zornes: An American Artist,” I was excited to take a break from my usual stint as an art appraiser and delve into the remarkable career of one of California’s most notable artists, Milford Zornes.With the assistance of scholar Gordon McClelland, the exhibition consists of Zornes’ paintings borrowed from private collections throughout the country.

An innovator of the California Style of watercolor painting, Milford Zornes gained international acclaim for his expansive brushstrokes, vividly colored and abstract representations of the American landscape. In appraising art throughout California, I often come upon Zornes work. He was a  prolific artist, having lived to age of 100 and working for nearly 80 years. He was known to paint an entire painting in a few hours.

James Milford Zornes (1908-2008) was born in Camargo, Oklahoma. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Zornes family moved to Southern California, where Milford would ultimately settle as an artist and teacher. At a young age, Zornes pursued a career in journalism and moved to Santa Barbara County where he enrolled in Allan Hancock College (known as Santa Maria Junior College). Upon moving back to the Los Angeles area, he abandoned writing and pursued an art career.

While attending Scripps College in Claremont, Zornes became a pupil of Millard Sheets. Working alongside Sheets as well as Rex Brandt, George Post, Phil Dyke, other of California artists of the time -- Zornes began depicting regional Los Angeles. No longer able to afford the expense of oil paints during the Depression, the versatility and cost of watercolors enabled Zornes and his fellow artists to transport their materials to paint outside. “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 20th century,” said Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times. The quick drying qualities of the medium required artists to use expedient, expressionist brushstrokes.

Zornes excelled in the medium and was soon commissioned to paint for the WPA's Federal Arts Project, and began to gain artistic prominence. Just as the Regionalist and American Scene styles of painting championed scenes of the everyday people, Zornes’ early works depicted cityscapes and life in Depression-era America. With the U.S. joining WWII, Zornes enrolled in the U.S. Army as a War Artist and traveled to China, Burma, and India -- where he began depicting exotic landscapes.

Upon returning to Claremont, California after the war, Zornes began teaching art. In his continued efforts to master watercolor, Zornes experimented with a looser, abstract style. With the movement of Post-War modern art gaining momentum, Zornes explored line, form, and color rather than purely representation scenes. “I think in terms of big abstract concern and I think of detail as an embellishment. I keep constantly in mind that while embellishment is important, still when you begin this process of embellishment, you can also begin the process of deterioration” said Zornes in "Milford Zornes: An American Artist" by McClelland.

Still, he never gave up representational painting. Instead of attempting to capture purely realistic landscapes, Zornes attempted to highlight the striking colors and shapes of an alternative American scene. In paintings such as “Zion in the Summer,” Zornes subtlety hints at form in order to capture the essence of a scene. With a few simple strokes, Zornes imbues a simple seascape with nuance, atmosphere, and vibrance.

Zornes worked for nearly 100 years documenting the beauty and evolution of California’s landscape as well as that of South America, Hawaii, Mexico, Alaska, and Europe. Zornes was also an influential teacher, helping instruct young artists at schools such as UCSB, Pomona College, Otis Art Institute, and Riverside Art Center.

Zornes’ work captures the surreal beauty of the American landscape. Still, his paintings are very much about the process of painting. The current exhibition at the Wildling Art Museum attempts to chronicle Zornes' achievement as an artist, exhibiting nearly 30 artworks done between the years of 1955-1985. The artist, not only, developed alternative methods of interpreting the natural world, but captured the American landscape with a distinctive voice and poignancy unique to few artists.

©2010 Alissa J. Anderson. All Rights Reserved. None of the contents or images in this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Anderson Shea Art Appraisals, and the appraiser’s signature.) IMAGE: Courtesy of Wildling Art Museum

Art in The Home

The art we choose to put in our homes lives with us, inspires us, comforts us, and challenges us. As an art appraiser, I am constantly discovering the diversity of the art people choose to put in their homes. Some art collectors choose a cohesive collecting theme surrounding a particular style, genre, or subject. A recent art appraisal in Santa Barbara brought me to a collector fascinated by trees. Every artwork in his home, including photographs, paintings, and sculptures -- depicted the beauty of trees. Other art collectors compile works based on their personal or family ties to the artists, or because the pieces had been inherited from generation to generation. In each case, art collectors are intensely passionate and enthusiastic about the art with which they choose to live.

As an appraiser in Santa Barbara, many of the collections I encounter are that of Western and California art. The artists Lockwood DeForest, Douglass Parshall, Ray Strong, and Millard Sheets are among the artists I see over and over. What interests me about California art from this period that artists from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were interested in capturing the American landscape while also innovating modernist thought, aesthetics, and visual narratives. While paintings by some of my favorite California artists Belle Baranceanu, James Swinnerton, Milford Zornes, and Francis De Erdely cannot be classified as specifically modern -- their work has a modernist sensibility. Whether it composition, color, or style, these paintings and drawings explore notions of modernity unique to life in California and the West.

Early 20th century California landscape painting began as an offshoot of the European plein-air Impressionist style. Celebrating the natural, picturesque beauty of the American landscape, these artists had a recognizable style and palette. Beginning in the 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression, many artists began exploring different styles and media. No longer able to afford oil paint, artists like Milford Zornes, Hubert Buel, and Millard Sheets began using watercolors. The quick-drying quality of the medium required the artists to use quick, expressionist brushstrokes. Such a practice evolved into an entire movement of art in the United States. Implementing bolder colors and styles, the artists developed alternative methods of interpreting the natural world.

After the Great Depression many artists explored the American landscape from an alternative, modern approach. Milford Zornes’ Desert Rainstorm (now on exhibit at the Wildling Art Museum) represents a shift in artistic pursuits. Instead of attempting to capture pure realism, his paintings emphasize the striking form, color, and shape of an alternative American landscape. Almost entirely abstract, the flatness and simplicity is achieved by breaking down objects into their most basic shape and color.

Influenced by the movement of modern art happening in Europe, many artists began implementing a visual dialog connected to Fauvism, Cubism, and Expressionism. They were more interested exploring line and form, rebelling against the pastel palette of the California Impressionist tradition.

As an art appraiser, I am constantly investigating the ingredients of a truly great painting. For each collector, that is different. For some it is a tree and for others it is a single painting that captures the unworldly beauty of the American landscape, but is also the process of painting and its ability to transcend the natural world.

©2010 Alissa J. Anderson. All Rights Reserved. None of the contents or images in this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Anderson Shea Art Appraisals, and the appraiser’s signature.)

ART APPRAISAL of the MONTH

(Once a month our appraiser, Alissa J. Anderson, does an online art appraisal for one of our readers. Submit your art.)

When we asked readers for submissions for this month’s ART FIND art appraisal of the month, we got some interesting artworks. As an art appraiser in Santa Barbara, I have special interest in appraising California art of the mid-century. So when I was asked to help appraise this 1949 painting by California landscape painter Robert Rishell, here's what I found….

Our reader acquired this Rishell painting, “Birds on the Horizon” from a California friend who was traveling through Texas 15 years ago. He traded the painting to her as payment for a project, and told her it was similar one his father had owned in San Anselmo, California.

Robert Clifford Rishell was an artist born in Oakland, California in 1917 and spent much of his career in the Bay Area. As a young artist, he won a scholarship to the California College of Arts and Crafts. Rishell studied technique and color, and his early paintings consisted of meticulously painted still-lifes. While at art school, Rishell became a pupil of Mexican muralist Xavier Martinez, someone whose work would profoundly influence Rishell throughout his life.

Robert Rishell became an important California artist. He helped organize the first showing of the Society of Western Artists at the California Garden and Home Exposition. Robert Rishell was also instrumental in founding the Oakland Art Museum in the Bay Area.His paintings are held in a number of private and public collections, including the University of Chicago, Oakland Public Library World Trade Center, SF; Oakland Museum; Bank of California, Oakland; Palm Springs Desert Museum; UC Berkeley.

In his 20s, Robert Rishell began traveling beyond California to paint the landscapes of Texas, Utah, and New Mexico. While exploring the deserts of the Southwest, the allure of the nature entranced Rishell. Like many artists of the period such as James Swinnerton, Lockwood DeForest, and Peter Ellenshaw, Rishell became fascinated by the magnificence of monumental sweeping big skies, desert bluffs, and dramatic shadows.

It was while traveling in 1949, I suspect Robert Rishell may have painted, “Birds on the Horizon.” This painting of wild marshlands has an illusive quality present in many of Rishell’s artworks. Rishell’s subjects often focuse on the exotic dichotomies of the natural world, a place where parched landscapes can coexist with thriving beauty. For Rishell, the simplicity of an elegant bird, a simple slice of sky, or an unadorned brush conveyed something simultaneously aloof, yet strikingly beautiful.

In my art appraisal, I found that collectors of Rishell’s paintings tend to pay higher amounts for his well-known California and Western desert landscapes -- but the scarcity of Rishell’s work still makes “Birds on the Horizon” of a high appraised value.

While the painting appears to need cleaning, the painting is in good condition. A competitive demand exists for Robert Rishell’s paintings and the painting’s quality, technique, and brushwork. This artwork is well painted, composed, and executed – making my appraisal of it in the mid-range of the market for Rishell’s work.

At auction this painting would be appraised to sell between $3,000-$4,000. A treasure indeed!

Please submit your painting, drawing, or sculpture for next month’s ART FIND appraisal. To be considered, mail a photo and brief description to: artsappraiser@gmail.com

©2010 Alissa J. Anderson. All Rights Reserved. None of the contents of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Anderson Shea Art Appraisals, and the appraiser’s signature.)

Power of the Portrait

As an art appraiser I am often asked to appraise portrait paintings. What's so interesting about portraiture is its ability to capture the very essence of a person, a time-period, and even an entire society.

At the turn of the 20th century, American portrait painters held a unique position in depicting American culture. Artists like John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, and William Merritt Chase established themselves as American master painters – capturing portraits of the political and industrialist elite. With images of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, and novelist Henry James, artists like John Singer Sargent depicted influential figures as icons of American progress. Bringing their European academic training to the U.S., these artists presented to the international art world that American society was bridging Old World traditions with a uniquely American experience.

Patrons of commissioned portraits had always played a significant role in supporting the long-held tradition of portraiture. European nobility, aristocrats, and the wealthy bourgeois had helped sustain the genre of painting for hundreds of years. During the Gilded Age of the 1880s, a new American industrialist elite used the tradition of portraiture to portray themselves as symbols of worldly power and strength. East Coast artist were commissioned to present such individuals as the figureheads of American culture.

Not only the wealthy gave patronage to the realm of early portraiture. Limning portraits were often commissioned by working-class families. These commissions by second-tier artists were less refined than the works of Sargent or Chase. Although these examples did not have the same level of aesthetic precision, technique, or refinement -- they were significant in representing all facets of the American experience.

On the West Coast, painters including Belle Baranceanu, Nicholas Brigante, Sueo Serisawa, Boris Deutsch, William Hesthal, Anton Refregier, continued the heritage of figurative painting, but used it in a modern way in order to make a social commentary. Francis De Erdely, a Hungarian émigré, who became one of California’s most notable modernists painted portraits in Europe, Detroit, and finally Los Angeles during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

Francis De Erdely almost always painted figurative subjects, a genre not often associated with modernism. Francis De Erdely’s portraits were painted not out of nostalgia for the past, but as a reflection of the human condition on the West Coast of California. Francis De Erdely created some of the most striking figurative paintings in American art and his work remains poignant today.

Portrait and figurative painting continues to exist as an unparalleled genre of painting which serves as a compelling and accomplished articulation of the human experience. A portrait reveals a time, a place, and an individual. A successful portrait by a skilled artist reveals a uniquely intimate moment between an artist and sitter – one that is pure, unguarded, and candid.
(©2009 Alissa J. Anderson. All Rights Reserved. None of the contents of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Anderson Shea Art Appraisals, and the appraiser’s signature.)

ART FIND of the MONTH

(Once a month Alissa Anderson does an online art appraisal for one of our readers. Submit your art.)

Another Man’s Treasure

Is the painting you unearthed during spring-cleaning, the next Jackson Pollock? If you’ve seen Antiques Roadshow on PBS, you know digging around in your garage might just be the next great treasure hunt.

What makes art valuable? The answer is this: it depends. Value depends upon many things including the artist, the condition of the object, art market trends, and whether the artwork is sold at a gallery or auction. An art appraiser also has to consider authenticity, provenance, and style.

So when we asked our readers to submit a piece of art for an online appraisal, we discovered something exciting. Our Santa Barbara art collector inherited a painting from her mother, who spent many years in Claremont, California. She didn’t know much more that that. As an art appraiser, my first big clue was a signature and a date identifying it as painting by one of California’s watercolorists, Milford Zornes. Zornes began painting during the Great Depression, alongside Southern California artists Millard Sheets, Rex Brandt, George Post, among others. During the 1930s, the group formed the California Style of watercolor painting as an inexpensive alternative to oils. Watercolors and paper also enabled impoverished artists to transport their materials easily and paint on site.

As an art appraiser specializing in California art, I was able to discover that “Farm House” was painted in 1953 and depicts a scene from then-rural Riverside with the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains in the background. Demonstrating Zornes’s unique variation on the Watercolor Style, he utilizes large, swift brushstrokes and stark, unpainted negative space. Zornes lived to be 100 years old and painted almost all his life. He is widely regarded in the art world and his paintings are widely collected, making “Farm House” a desirable artwork. 

At auction this painting would be estimated to sell between $3,000-$5,000. A treasure indeed. . . 

Please submit your painting, drawing, or sculpture for next month’s ART FIND. To be considered, mail a photo and brief description to: artsappraiser@gmail.com

©2009 Alissa J. Anderson, Santa Barbara, California. All Rights Reserved. None of the contents of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Anderson Shea Art Appraisals, and the appraiser’s signature.)

How to Find an Art Appraiser

People often ask me: "How do I find a qualified art appraiser?"

When it comes to finding a qualified art appraiser, there are few VERY important things to keep in mind. Like in any field, do your research.

From a qualified art appraiser based in Santa Barbara, California here are some useful tips:

1. First and foremost, an art appraiser should be a member of one of the 3 appraisal associations (AAA, ISA, ASA). These associations regulate their appraisers by enforcing ethics and principles of appraising. Associations also require their art appraisers to be tested under The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice.

2. Make sure your art appraiser has taken (USPAP), a test required for appraisers in all disciplines and ensures that appraisers are aware of generally accepted standards for professional appraisal practice in North America. USPAP is regulated by Congress under The Appraisal Foundation.

3. An art appraiser worth hiring also has a formal arts education and has expertise in the art market. He/she is highly trained and should have a degree in art history, appraisal studies, connoisseurship, theory, ethics, and procedures of art appraising.

4. Art appraisers should have a specialty in your type of personal property (fine art, prints, 19th century American paintings, California art, etc.) and years of experience. Obtaining a copy of the prospective appraiser's resume and references is strongly suggested. They often list these on their websites.

5. Qualified art appraisers are professionals. They are essential to protecting art collectors, museums, artists, and investors. Appraisals are used by insurance companies, bankers, lawyers, and accountants to protect assets. So get your art appraised, and make sure it's by a professional.

Appraisers Association of America, 212-889-5404
American Society of Appraisers, 800-272-8258
International Society of Appraisers, 888-472-4732