Born in Pomona, California and living much of his life in Southern California, Millard Sheets earned a reputation as one of the foremost watercolorists of his era. His subjects were landscapes and scenes of urban and rural people in humble living circumstances. He said that he was willing to be called a regionalist only if you accepted the idea that his work embraced a large region.

It is said that of all the Depression-era artists, he was the most representative of the California School*, part of the American Scene* movement. According to Susan Anderson in her essay, 'California Holiday', for American Art Review, June 2002, he was a "colorful, larger-than-life character possessing equal measures o...