Portraying a full rigged at sea, the artist has captured a moment with the sun dropping creating an excellent luminous sky.
A California painter of marine scenes with ships shown in detail, he also did some portraits and landscapes but received most attention for his maritime subjects, especially activities in San Francisco Bay.
He was born in Wilmington, Delaware and as a young man, worked on ships in the Chesapeake Bay. From that time, he was fascinated by marine life. He was one of the few noted San Francisco artists in the late 19th century who had not studied in Europe. His reputation was for independence, and he arrived in California in 1849 at the time of the Gold Rush. He worked as a teamster on the San Francisco waterfront and then, determining to get art training, left California to spend six years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he took art lessons from still life painter, Samuel Marsden Brookes.
Then he returned to San Francisco and established a studio for many years on Bush Street with Brookes who followed Denny to California.
His work is in numerous collections including the Stanford University Museum in Palo Alto; Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento; Oakland Museum; Bohemian Club; Monterey Peninsula Museum; De Young Museum;
