Edward Penny RA (1714–1791)

• Was an English portrait and historical painter.
• Born at Knutsford, Cheshire in 1714.
• He one of the twin elder sons of Robert Penny, surgeon, by Clare, daughter of William Trafford.
• He was sent to London and placed under the tuition of Thomas Hudson.
• Later he went to Rome and studied under Marco Benefial. 

• He returned to England about 1748, and began his professional career by painting small whole-lengths.

• At the Exhibition of 1762 Penny exhibited a small whole-length of a lady and a scene in Jane Shore. 

• Penny married, after 1753 and before 1768, Elizabeth, daughter of John Simmons of Millbank, Westminster.

• Penny appears to have joined the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1762; but with Benjamin West, Richard Wilson, and others, then withdrew because of internal frictions. 

• In December 1768 he was nominated one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy of Arts, and its first professor of painting.

• He then ceased to exhibit, and was obliged by ill-health to resign the professorship of painting, in which he was succeeded by James Barry. 

• Penny died at Chiswick on 16 November 1791.

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