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Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian
| Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 14 April 1911 Kütahya, Turkey |
| Died | 6 January 2004 |
| Nativity | Turkey |
| Known for | Painting |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Army |
| ASN | 34361495 |
| Enlisted | Ft Oglethorpe, Georgia |
{{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.
Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian (14 April 1911 – 6 January 2004) was an Armenian-born American artist and Ritchie Boy, a muralist and painter who painted The Phantasmagoria of Military Intelligence Training during his wartime service and later became known for his self-built art ranch in Altadena, California, and his friendship with the physicist Richard Feynman.
Biography
Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian was born to Armenian parents on 14 April 1911 in Kütahya, in western Anatolia in the Ottoman Empire. Escaping the Armenian genocide with the survivors of his family, he made his way across Europe and reached New Haven, Connecticut, in 1923. Struck by how wasteful Americans seemed, he resolved as a young immigrant to recycle whatever he could. He won a full scholarship to the Yale School of Fine Arts, earned a Master of Fine Arts at Yale, and studied art in Italy in the 1930s. Back in the United States during the Great Depression he painted large murals, including eleven for the Tennessee State Capitol in 1938, which earned him the honorary title of "Colonel", and in 1940 the post office mural Early St. Johnsville Pioneers in St. Johnsville, New York.
Zorthian entered the Army as a private at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, on 24 July 1942 (ASN 34361495). He first served in the 603rd Camouflage Engineer Battalion, a unit of many New York–area artists that later became part of the Ghost Army. The following year, still stateside, he was transferred to military intelligence and trained at Camp Ritchie, where records list him as a draftsman. There he painted what he considered his masterpiece, the mural The Phantasmagoria of Military Intelligence Training.
His first marriage, to the shaving-cream heiress Betty Williams, ended in divorce, but it left him the first acres of the ranch in Altadena, California, where he lived from 1945 until his death. He turned the ranch into what he called "The Center for Research and Development with an Emphasis on Aesthetics", building rental houses, rock walls, towers, bridges, and walkways from telephone poles, railroad ties, and salvaged junk, painting in his studio, and breeding horses. With his second wife, Dabney (1933–2006), he lived largely self-sufficiently, raising livestock, goats, vegetables, and chickens. He chaired the Pasadena Art Fair in 1954 and 1955 and showed his work at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1953. His paintings, mostly of nudes, sold for tens of thousands of dollars, but he was at least as famous in Southern California for his bohemian life: a July 1952 party at the ranch featured Charlie Parker, and in his last decade he hosted springtime birthday parties as "Zor-Bacchus". His friends included Parker, Andy Warhol, and Richard Feynman, whom he met at a party where Feynman played bongos; the two tried to teach each other art and physics, as Feynman recounted in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, and Zorthian's lessons led Feynman to draw for the rest of his life. Zorthian died of congestive heart failure on 6 January 2004. Most of his archived artwork was destroyed when the Eaton Fire burned the ranch in January 2025.
Gallery
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Timeline
- 14 April 1911 — Born in Kütahya, Ottoman Empire.
- 1923 — Arrived in New Haven, Connecticut.
- 1938 — Painted eleven murals for the Tennessee State Capitol.
- 1940 — Painted the St. Johnsville, New York, post office mural.
- 1942–1943 — 603rd Camouflage Engineer Battalion; then military intelligence training at Camp Ritchie.
- 24 July 1942 — Entered the Army as Pvt at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia (ASN 34361495).
- 1945 — Settled on his ranch in Altadena, California.
- 6 January 2004 — Died.
Technical record
| Field | Imported value |
|---|---|
| Nara ASN | 34361495 |
| Nara Name | ZORTHIAN JIRAYR H |
| Nara State | 11 |
| Nara County | 009 |
| Nara POE | 4350 |
| Nara DOE | 240742 |
| Nara Grade Alpha | PVT |
| Nara Race | 1 |
| Nara Race Description | White citizen |
| Nara Height (inches) | 62 |
| Nara Weight (lbs) | 147 |
| row_source | demographics |
Research notes
- Draftsman
- DEML
Sources
- Wikipedia: Jirayr Zorthian
- Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
- Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
- NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
- 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)