Gene Sherman (art specialist)


Dr Gene Sherman, AM is a philanthropist, academic and expert on art, fashion and architecture. In 2018, she founded the Sherman Centre for Culture and Ideas.

Early life and education

Sherman was born in 1947 and raised in South Africa to parents of European Jewish background. In the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, her parents decided to emigrate to Australia. They arrived in Melbourne in 1964, but returned to South Africa nine months later due to the large distances and political disagreement with the White Australia Policy. Upon return to South Africa, Sherman attended the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts. During this time she met and later wed Brian Sherman. The couple have two children.
Sherman once again emigrated to Australia, this time with her young family in 1976, and still lives there. After completing the preliminary research at the Sorbonne in Paris, back in Australia, Sherman completed a doctorate in early 20th-century French Literature in 1981 at the University of Sydney. Sherman taught at the University of Sydney and was appointed Head of Modern Languages at Ascham School in Sydney from 1981 to 1986.

Career

Sherman Galleries

Following her teaching career, Sherman established the commercial Sherman Galleries which exhibited the work of Australian artists including : Paddy Bedford, Gordon Bennett, Shane Cotton, Shaun Gladwell, Janet Laurence, Mike Parr, Imants Tillers and Hossein Valamanesh, among others.
From 1989, Sherman focussed on working closely with artists from Asia, which included Ah Xian, Wenda Gu, Cai Guo-Qiang, Shen Shaomin, and Xu Bing, among others.

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF)

In 2008, Sherman founded the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation which she directed as a planned decade-long exhibiting and commissioning program until 2017. Among others, SCAF commissioned new works by : Brook Andrew, Chien-Chi Chang, Olafur Eliasson, Yang Fudong, Shaun Gladwell, Jitish Kallat, Janet Laurence, Dinh Q. Lê, Sopheap Pich, SANAA, Chiharu Shiota, Mikhael Subotzky, Fiona Tan, Christian Thompson, Ai Weiwei and Tokujin Yoshioka, Yang Zhichao.
In its final year of operation, SCAF curated major exhibitions, presenting the work of Shigeru Ban, and two exhibitions in Israel of Australian artists: Shaun Gladwell and a group show, Tracks and Traces, Negev Museum of Art, Be’er Sheva.
In 2013, Sherman launched Fugitive Structures, a series of architectural pavilions commissioned from architects in the Asia Pacific, Australia and the Middle East which ran until 2016. Fugitive Structures presented four pavilions featuring : Crescent House by Andrew Burns, Trifolium by Robert Beson and Gabriele Ulacco , Sway by Sack and Reicher + Muller with Eyal Zur and Green Ladder by Vo Trong Nghia.

Sherman Centre for Culture and Ideas (SCCI)

In 2018, Sherman created the Sherman Centre for Culture and Ideas in Sydney as an extension of SCAF, focusing on elevating the disciplines of fashion and architecture.
As a "Hub-based initiative", SCCI features two concentrated public programs annually. In 2018 SCCI's keynote series included presentations from speakers such as Kengo Kuma, Jil Magid, Ryue Nishizawa, Michael Rakowitz, Karen Walker, among others. In 2019 SCCI's keynote guests and speakers included Behrouz Boochani, Julian Burnside AO QC, Angelica Cheung, Megan Cope, Odile Decq, Sou Fujimoto, Abbie Galvin, Junya Ishigami, Akira Isogawa, Anthony Lister, Kim McKay AO, The Hon. Justice Melissa Perry QC, Antonio Pio Saracino, Alex Seton, Mark Tedeschi QC AM, Michael Zavros, among others.

Appointments and awards

Sherman is the recipient of the following awards: