BIOGRAPHY:

Samuel Tilden Daken (1876-1935) was born in Bunker Hill, Illinois on June 14, 1876. At age three he made the cross-country trek with his parents to California. He lived briefly in Sacramento before settling in San Francisco where he spent his early years. At the turn of the century he worked as a fresco painter and decorated many homes in San Francisco. The fire of 1906 destroyed the homes that housed his murals as well as his studio on Van Ness Avenue and much of his early work.

He soon opened an art school in Santa Rosa before joining the art faculty at Ursuline College in Sonoma.For unknown reasons, Samuel Tilden Daken used the pseudonym Sidney Tilden Dakin after 1910. By 1932 he was a resident of Los Angeles. Like many artists during the Depression, survival was difficult for Daken.

His last years were spent in a mountain cabin near Georgetown, California where he attempted gold mining. He died of liver cancer on April 24, 1935. He is best known for his landscapes of Lake Tahoe, the redwoods, Marin and Sonoma counties.

Exhibited: Elks Club (Santa Rosa), 1908; Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1916; Pandora's Box (Sacramento), 1922.

Works held: Fresno Museum; Saint Mary's College (Moraga); Sonoma County Museum; Oakland Museum; Nevada Museum (Reno); Depot Park Museum (Sonoma).

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