Col. Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian was born April 14, 1911 in Kutahya, Turkey, of Armenian parents. At the age of three, he showed considerable talent in drawing and painting. He went through two Turkish massacres before age eight. He left Turkey at age nine with his family and spent a year in Padua, Italy, during which his father took him to many cities in Europe and exposed him to great works of art. He arrived in the United States at the age of eleven and settled with his family in New Haven, Connecticut, where he obtained his formal education. After graduating from Yale, the Winchester Fellowship granted him a year and a half at the American Academy in Rome with study throughout Europe. His art career branched into various directions on his return to the United States. He has forty two murals throughout the country. Other aspects of his art career include sculpture, painting, and almost fifty years of designing and constructing the Zorthian Ranch. Col. Jirayr Zorthian passed away on January 6, 2004.
Education: 
Yale School of Fine Arts,
BFA, 1936
Winchester Fellowship
American Academy in Rome 1936-1938
Murals:
(some of the significant ones)
A large rock mural in the
Laura Scudder home in La Habra, California, 1957.
"Phantasmagoria of
Military Intelligence Training" A large serial mural 157' long and 4' high.
Commissioned by the U.S. Army and later lost, 1945.
"The Development of
Power" and "The Development of Light"
Two large murals in the
reception area of The United Illuminating Company, New Haven, Connecticut.
Temporarily removed for reinstallation in new building, 1937.
"Restoration After
the Hurricane," Mural in United Illuminating Plant, New Haven, Connecticut.
Twelve (12) murals in the
Governors Reception Room in Nashville, Tennessee. Post Office, St. Johnsville, New York,1938 .
Other murals are in churches, hotels, post offices and residences.
Positions:
Developer and director of
The Zorthian Ranch for Children, 1957-1982.
A summer day camp to develop creative and athletic potential in children.
Architecture Consultant
for the publication, "Engineering Science", 1960-1972.
Coordinator, Mural
Competition, Glendale Water Reclamation Plant, 1970.
Design Consultant for the
F.C. Nash & Company department stores, Pasadena, California, 1967.
Combat Artist for the
United States Navy. Sent to Formosa
and Viet Nam to observe, draw and paint his impressions. The government owns the resulting painting and drawings,
including a portrait of John F. Kennedy.
Chairman, "Art in
Architecture," Los Angeles, California, 1956
Chairman, Pasadena Art
Fair, 1954, 1955.
Center for Research and
Development of Industrial Discards with the Emphasis on Aesthetics.
Since 1945 at his 45-acre ranch in Altadena, California, he has been
recycling materials to construct buildings, corrals, walls, stables, large wall
and tower sculptures.
Teaching:
Chouinard Art Institute
Otis Art Institute
California Institute of
Technology
Chandler School
Pasadena City College
Shows:
L.A. Slide participant
with "Water Wall" sculpture.
"The Four
Aces," One of the Four Aces (Ace of Hearts) at the Jan Arte Gallery in
Pasadena, 1996.
"Artists Influenced
by Architecture," Novaspace, Los Angeles Theater Center.
Baghdad Bi-Annual
International Festival of Art, In Iraq. Represented
the United States with three large compositions in 1988.
Los Angeles County Fair,
1974, Guest artist with a one-man show.
The Men's Committee of
the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art sponsored a large etching in the 1970's.
It was unveiled at the museum banquet in his honor in preparation for an
exhibit of his large 1960's drawings. 
Pacific Ocean Park, 1964
Pasadena Museum of Modern
Art, 1954
"The
Divorcement," A collage which hung in
a show entitled "Twenty four most promising United States
Artists."1953
Awards
and Honors:
Grand Marshall of the
1997 Pasadena Doo Dah Parade, Pasadena, California.
Tennessee Colonel
bestowed by Governor George Mc Wherther, 1987.
"Best Artist of
Pasadena," and "Most Eccentric" voted by the people in a survey
of the Pasadena Weekly, 1989 
Gold Crown Award, for
art, by the Pasadena Arts Council, 1983
First Prize, drawing,
Pasadena Society of Artists, 1959
Purchase Prize, Los
Angeles Country Museum of Art , 1949, for "The Mob," a large oil
painting.
Featured:
"The Last
Bohemian," feature story and cover of the
L A Weekly, June 13, 1997.
Smithsonian Archives of
American Art at the Huntington Library
"The Wizard's Eye,
Visions of American Resourcefulness," by Jim Higgs, Chronical Books.
Featuring the works of Jirayr H. Zorthian of walls, buildings, outdoor
sculptures, gates, sculpture compositions and land sculpture composed of mostly
recycled materials.
"No Ordinary
Genius," Life and Times, PBS TV production about Richard Feynman.
The
Ranch:
The ranch encompasses about eighty acres of land. It includes
the Zorthian dwelling, which has been built onto and extended by Zorthian.
There are different pieces of architecture such as the tower, the pigpen,
the log wall, Zorthian’s studio, and different permanent and temporary active
and inactive structures, all scattered on different parts of the ranch.
The ranch is home to other residents as well as animals
such as pigs, goats, horses, chickens, and geese.
All around the ranch are
different art pieces created by Zorthian. Most
of the art pieces are created by found objects, mostly industrial parts, which
he has recycled into different forms of art.
Zorthian's aim was to ultimately turn his ranch into a cultural center for
arts, studies, and research.
Logos taken from the flyer designed
by 