Bonnie Portnoy spent more than 20 years researching and writing about her maternal grandfather, Tilden Daken (1876–1935), a celebrated artist and adventurer whom she never knew. Among the most adventurous painters of the American West, Daken painted in every California state park and throughout the national parks of the West—from the redwood forests and the High Sierra to scenes beneath the Pacific Ocean painted from a custom-built diving bell.

A close friend of writer Jack London, Daken first met London atop a haystack in the Reno train station in 1901. The two young adventurers then rode the brake beams of a freight train to Oakland after briefly working together in a Truckee lumber yard. Daken renewed his friendship with London in Glen Ellen in 1906, where Daken and his wife relocated after they lost their home and Van Ness Avenue studio in the San Francisco earthquake; Portnoy’s mother was born in Glen Ellen. During the six years Daken lived in Sonoma Valley, he created many beautiful paintings of Sonoma Mountain and the surrounding countryside.

Daken’s extraordinary life then took him into the Mexican Revolution, experiences that led to a major exhibit at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. He traveled on painting expeditions to Mexico, Baja California, Hawaii, and the South Seas. In Hollywood, he revealed his unusual sensory synesthesia by painting to music in the “key of red.”

Join Bonnie Portnoy for an illustrated presentation featuring Daken’s artwork and the remarkable story of this forgotten California Impressionist whose art and adventures spanned the globe. Portnoy’s beautiful book,  includes more than 250 illustrations of Daken’s artwork and early twentieth century photographs. Copies will be available for purchase and signing following the presentation.