Dr Gene Sherman AM (b. 1947) is Chairman and Executive Director of Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, a family philanthropic enterprise dedicated to the public exhibition of significant contemporary art from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Sherman was born in South Africa, and first came to Australia with her parents in 1964, but they moved back again after less than a year. At university in Johannesburg she met Brian Sherman, then studying accountancy; they married in 1968 and emigrated to Sydney in 1976 with their son and daughter. During and after completion of a PhD in French literature at the University of Sydney in 1981, she spent more than fifteen years researching and lecturing, at the university and at Ascham girls' school. In 1986, funded by Brian Sherman, she established the Sherman galleries in Sydney. At Sherman Galleries, which employed more than a dozen staff, she initiated and organised up to sixteen Sydney-based exhibitions annually, as well as Australian and international touring exhibitions aimed at foregrounding Australian contemporary art and linking art and artists in the Asia-Pacific region. Also hosting various projects, forums and discussion panels, Sherman Galleries emerged as one of Australia's major private art institutions. Gene Sherman spent 21 years as the gallery's proprietor and director before setting up the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in 2008. Sherman now undertakes a full programme of mentoring, advising, presenting to museums, universities and collectors, art writing, art prize judging and radio talks. She sponsors a scholarship for a student in the master's in arts administration program at the University of New South Wales, a studio at Bundanon, and a contemporary Australian art research room at the Power Institute, University of Sydney. In the past Gene and Brian Sherman have sponsored prizes for sculpture at various universities and in relation to events including Sculpture by the Sea, and an Artbox Inc. prize for young artists. Gene Sherman is a former deputy chair of the board of the National Portrait Gallery. She is a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has an honorary D Litt from the University of Sydney.
Purchased with funds provided by Patrick Corrigan AM 2016
© Gary Grealy
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