Born in Sydney, Garry Shead studied at the National Art School in 1961-2. With Martin Sharp, John Firth Smith and Ian van Wieringen he edited The Arty Wild Oat and published cartoons in the Oz, The Bulletin, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Honi Soit. He worked for several years as a scenic artist with the ABC before winning the Young Contemporaries Prize in 1967. In the ensuing years he travelled in Papua New Guinea, Japan and Europe and held several international art residencies. Shead's first solo exhibitions were at the Watters Gallery in Sydney from 1966; he has had numerous solo exhibitions since. His work is represented in the National Gallery, several state galleries and many public and private collections. A finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize of 1987, he won the Archibald Prize in 1993 for his portrait of an old friend, Sydney publisher Tom Thompson.
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