Roger Dennis carried the tradition of American Impressionism established by the Old Lyme Art Colony throughout the 20th Century until his death in 1996. In an interview 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. ’ "