Grahame Sydney was born in Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand in 1948. He graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1969 and began his full time art career in 1974 after a period of teaching and overseas travel. He was Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago in 1978, and exhibited widely throughout New Zealand, also in Sydney and London, since 1969. A major retrospective of his work, On The Road, toured New Zealand public art galleries from 2000-2002.
Sydney’s paintings have been gifted to Nelson Mandela, bought by Elton John and Sam Neill, and the New Zealand iconic, Rossie at Pisa, now hangs in Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington.