About the artist:

Early in his career, Danby experimented with abstract expressionism. In August 1961, Danby participated in the first Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (TOAE) in the parking lot of the Four Seasons hotel, located at that time on Jarvis Street in Toronto. Danby won the "Best of Exhibition" prize with an untitled abstract, currently in the collection of the artist.

Danbys’ best known works (such as: At the Crease, Lacing Up, and Pancho) are in egg tempera, a challenging medium. As well as mediums such as water colour, acrylic , and oil. Water colour was used throughout his career.

Danby later focused on realism in most of his work, and developed his skill with watercolour. His first solo exhibition in 1964 sold out.

In 1975, Danby was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.[5] He designed four coins for the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

He also received the Jessie Dow Prize, the 125th Anniversary Commemorative Medal of Canada, the City of Sault Ste. Marie's Award of Merit and both the Queen's Silver and Golden Jubilee Medals.

In the 1980s, Danby painted a number of watercolours about the America's Cup and portrayed Canadian athletes at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Danby has served on the governing board of the Canada Council and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Canada.

In 1997, Danby received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario.

In 1999 Danby had a studio near Guelph. In 2001, he was vested in both the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada.

A school on Grange Road in Guelph, Ontario was named after Danby. Ken Danby Way in his home town of the Sault Ste. Marie includes the Public Library and fittingly, the Art Gallery of Algoma. He was inducted into the Sault's Walk of Fame in 2006.

In 2016, the Art Gallery of Hamilton organized a retrospective of Danby's work, entitled Beyond the Crease.

For approximately three decades until his death, Danby lived and painted in a rural property near Guelph, Ontario, and spent years restoring the historic Armstrong Mill; some of his art work features the property. From November 2016 to January 2017, the Guelph Civic Museum exhibited examples of Danby's work including his Wayne Gretzky portrait, The Great Farewell.