Although he had no use of the upper portion of his left arm, Terence Duren played piano in jazz groups in Chicago while attending the Art Institute (1925-1931).
In 1941 he had a showing at the Jocelyn Museum in Omaha, and some time later decided to move back to Shelby, NE, where he lived until his death.
He and Dale Nichols were featured in a 1945 Time magazine article entitled “War in the Corn” that recounted a "dispute" between the two artists, when each held retrospective exhibitions of their works in their hometowns.
In 1950, Terence Duren did a series of illustrations for Lucius Beebe's book “The American West,” basing the images on the Omaha brothels and their inhabitants.
He was a prolific illustrator whose work regularly appeared on the cover of the "Magazine of the Midlands", the Sunday supplement of the Omaha World-Herald.