Roger Wilson Dennis was born in Connecticut in 1902 of parents of Scottish descent and raised there as a farmhand and gardener before turning his hand to impressionist painting. He carried on the tradition of American Impressionism established by the Old Lyme Art Colony, exhibiting there from 1940 to 1985, specializing in dazzling floral views.

In an interview by Edward Feit published in American Artist magazine (February, 1988), Dennis, a Norwich, CT native, recapped the major lesson of his apprenticeship: “If John Carlson and the other Old Lyme Impressionists taught me anything, it is that the center of interest is paramount. ‘Don’t try to put the world on a painting,’ Carlson would say. ‘Select one thing, put it down first, and subordinate all else to it, for there cannot be two pictures in one painting. ’ "