Back to the Artist Page

Lester Boronda Biography

BORONDA, Lester David (1886-1953). Painter, craftsman.

     Although born in Reno, NV on July 24, 1886, Boronda was a member of an early California family (his great-grandfather was a member of the second Junipero Serra expedition into Alta California in 1770). He was raised on a Salinas cattle ranch where today the family home is a state historical landmark.

     His art studies began in San Francisco at the Mark Hopkins Institute under Arthur Mathews and continued at the ASL in NYC under Frank Vincent DuMond. The finishing touches to his art training were under Jean Paul Laurens in Paris and in Munich.

     Leaving California in 1913, he moved to New York where he established an important craftsman center which specialized in wrought iron. His painting specialty in California had been genre of old Monterey and, after moving to the East, he painted street scenes of New York. Boronda often spent summers in Mystic, CT before his death in New Canaan on Sept. 19, 1953.

Member: Mystic AA; Carmel AA.

Exhibited: Del Monte Art Gallery (Monterey), 1910; NAD; AIC; Carnegie Institute, 1912; CGA, 1914, 1916, 1921, 1923; PAFA, 1924.

In: Salinas City Council; Nevada Museum (Reno); Monterey Peninsula Museum; CHS; PAFA; Rochester (NY) Mechanics Institute.

Source: Hughes, Edan Milton, "Artists in California: 1786-1940".