Denny Dent

Dennis E. "Denny" Dent (April 5, 1948 – March 29, 2004) was an American rapidity painter who was known for his frenetic performances as he painted large portraits of celebrities.

Dent was born in Oakland, California to a associates of artists and graduated from Oakland High School. "My grandfather was ambidextrous," he says, giving a confession to the gene pool for his two-fisted talents, "a cabinetmaker and an artist. My mommy was a painter and always told me I was an artist. That's the stock of the family." Though no one's been accomplished to state it, Dent's grandfather insisted they are concentrate on descendants of Titian, the Renaissance Italian master. He endorsed his mother and quickness painter D. Westry once influencing his art. His style emerged after he painted a spontaneous portrait of John Lennon at a 1980 vigil. Dent married Ali Christina Flores.

A Denny Dent performance, which he referred to as a "Two-Fisted Art Attack," consisted of him hurriedly painting upon a 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) black canvas gone multiple brushes in both hands, as capably as painting later his bare hands, to a musical accompaniment. Over the course of just a few pop/rock songs, he would fixed a portrait. His subjects were most often musicians, but next included new entertainers, sports figures, and embassy leaders. One of his most well-known performances was at the Woodstock '94 concert.

Dent could as a consequence paint subsequently his feet, but seldom did as a result in public. What he called his "dance on canvas" featured maniacal, mesmerizing movement, but he regarded the sermons he shouted higher than the music while he painted as his main mission. He said he turned down suggestion in Guinness World Records as the world's fastest artist because he feared the distinction might detract from his inspirational message nearly the saving graces of art.

"I'm out to move the heart of the nation," he told former President Gerald Ford afterward he painted him in eight minutes at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, according to an article in the Rocky Mountain News in 1995. "I've got no get older to lose."

A painting that Dent did of Albert Einstein hangs in the Lecture Halls building at the St. Louis Community College–Meramec campus.

Dent died in Denver of complications from a heart attack.

On the History channel series Pawn Stars, Dent's green painting of Jim Morrison is featured prominently upon a wall of the shop. The shop as well as has upon display Dent's paintings of Stevie Wonder and Jimi Hendrix, and in one episode acquired a portrait of John Lennon painted by Dent.