Maurice O'Shea Mt Pleasant
Artist/Maker and role
Garry Shead (b.1942): Artist
Production date
1971
About this object
Wine maker Maurice O’Shea (1897 – 1956) was Garry Shead’s uncle. Maurice O’Shea was a master wine maker who established the Mount Pleasant Winery in the Hunter Valley, a place that Garry Shead would visit in his holidays to spend time with his uncle. O’Shea was a strong supporter of his nephew’s artistic talents and he introduced Shead to literary classics to inspire the young artist’s imagination. O’Shea wore thick rimless spectacles because of his acute myopia (an affliction also shared by Shead). Shead has attached the bases of wine glasses to the painting to portray these thick lenses. This portrait, painted by Garry Shead, was donated to the Collection by Michael Hobbs in 2011.
Garry Shead has been an Archibald Finalist many times, his first in 1961 aged 19, and winning the 1993 Archibald Prize with his portrait of his friend, writer and publisher, Tom Thompson.
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