A brief note 

MICHAEL SHANNON was born near Kapunda, South Australia, in 1927 and after schooling in Adelaide, enrolled at the National Gallery School in Melbourne in 1945 (under William Dargie) – also studying part time with George Bell. Overseas travel took him to London, Paris (where he studied under the great Fernand Leger), and Florence. Apart from a spell in Sydney (1960-62) Shannon lived and worked in Melbourne for the rest of his life, exhibiting regularly in Sydney and Melbourne as well as in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. His characteristic vision of the city – usually a roof top or birds eye view of streets, houses and factories earned him a wide following. However, in the 1980s the landscape became the central concern of his work. It is landscape he clearly fell in love with – from the rock faces of the quarry paintings through the more intimate glimpses of hill sides with trees and bush tracks, to the large canvasses of spacious hills stretching to distant horizons.

A long battle with Parkinson’s disease preceded his death in 1993.