Denny Dent

Though no one's been able to verify it, Dent's grandfather insisted they are direct descendants of Titian, the Renaissance Italian master.

What he called his "dance on canvas" featured maniacal, mesmerizing movement, but he regarded the sermons he shouted over the music while he painted as his main mission.

[1] "I'm out to disturb the heart of the nation," he told former President Gerald Ford when he painted him in eight minutes at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, according to an article in the Rocky Mountain News in 1995.

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

[4] On the History channel series Pawn Stars, Dent's green painting of Jim Morrison is featured prominently on a wall of the shop.

Denny Dent painting Martin Luther King Jr. at the Tufts University Spring Fling in 1995. The painting currently hangs in the Mayer Campus Center at Tufts.