James Swinnerton was born in Eureka, California on November 13, 1875. He became a famous painter of desert landscapes following a successful career as an illustrator and cartoonist. His mother died when he was young, and his father, son of a Forty-Niner at Dutch Flat, started the newspaper Humboldt Star in Humboldt County and then became a judge in Stockton. Swinnerton began his art studies at the San Francisco School of Design under William Keith and Emil Carlsen. At 17 he was employed by the San Francisco Examiner where he became a favorite of owner/publisher William Randolph Hearst who was impressed by his work. When Hearst went to New York to start a Sunday supplement, Swinnerton joined him there.

In 1903 he moved to Palm Springs, California, and became a landscape painter, focusing on his love of the desert as his inspiration. From 1907, traveling with burro, sketching pad, and sleeping in the open air, he ranged over the entire Southwest,  painting the Arizona  desert, the Grand Canyon and Navajo scenes as well as many California landscapes. Over the years, Swinnerton was friends with other Western artists like Ed Borein, Thomas Moran, Carl Eytell, Walt Disney and Will Rogers.

Swinnerton and his wife Gretchen were inseparable companions and shared their love of the Desert Southwest. She accompanied him on all of his painting excursions into the desert and tours into the Indian country. He continued to paint until his death at ninety nine years of age. Referred to as the “Dean of Desert Southwest Artists”, he was and continues to be famous for creating superb canvases, vast panoramas of enchanting vistas that would inspire a poet. Desert Homestead is a magnificent example of one of those superb canvases that display his remarkable powers of observation and his creativity in capturing the dramatic glory of the desert. Swinnerton Arch in Monument Valley is named for this inspiring artist.