The following was written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher of Laguna Woods, California:

Jess was born on August 6, 1923 in Long Beach, California.  He studied painting at the California School of Fine Arts with abstract painters like Clyfford Still, Edward Corbett and Hassel Smith.  In 1959 he began a series of pictures called translations,  copies of children's book illustrations, or old snapshots.  They looked straightforward in reproduction, but they were built up out of many layers of pigment until they resembled a bas-relief.  He painted "paste-ups". enormous collages that were bewilderingly complex.  There were also the salvages, early paintings of his own, or others he found, transformed with strange new encrustations.   

Looking at Jess’ art is like watching a theatrical performance.  After taking in its major outlines, you get lost in a maze of detail and then emerge to find yourself looking at a different work.   

When Jess was in his twenties, he dropped his last name, California style.   

Sources include:   
John Ashbery in Newsweek, April 26, 1982   
Who's Who in American Art, R.R. Bowker, 1993-4.