A three-quarter lenth portrait showing Denny seated to the right wearing a grey suit and a maroon tie. He holds a gold pencil in his right hand and a paper in his left; a blue drape forms the background.
Sir Maurice Edward Denny was an engineer and shipbuilder; the eldest son of Archibald Denny (1860–1936). He was the third generation to run the family shipbuilding firm in Dumbarton. After education at Tonbridge School in Kent and then at the universities of Lausanne and Heidelberg, Denny embarked on an apprenticeship in the firm, while also studying naval architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (he gained first-class honours in his BSc in 1909). He became a partner in the firm's Leven shipyard in 1911, aged 24. In 1918 he was appointed a director of the newly created limited firm of Wm Denny & Co., which united the family’s shipbuilding and engineering concerns. He rose to be chairman in 1922, retiring in 1952. Denny was keenly interested in the application of new technologies and a key player in the foundation of the British Shipbuilding Research Association in 1944. He was knighted in 1946.
David Shanks Ewart (1901-65) was a Glasgow-born artist. He served in the RNVR during the Second World War.