Background
He one of the twin elder sons of Robert Penny, surgeon, by Clare, daughter of William Trafford, of Swythamley, Staffordshire, and was born at Knutsford, Cheshire in 1714.
He one of the twin elder sons of Robert Penny, surgeon, by Clare, daughter of William Trafford, of Swythamley, Staffordshire, and was born at Knutsford, Cheshire in 1714.
He was sent to London and placed under the tuition of Thomas Hudson. Later he went to Rome and studied under Marco Benefiale.
He returned to England about 1748, and began his professional career by painting small whole-lengths. Later he painted more demanding subjects. 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.
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 married, after 1753 and before 1768, Elizabeth, daughter of John Simmons of Millbank, Westminster and widow of Richard Fortnam, who possessed valuable leasehold property on the Grosvenor estate in London.
She died at Chiswick in 1791.
In December 1768 he was nominated one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy of Arts, and its first professor of painting.