Noel Sheridan

Cecil Noel Sheridan (12 December 1936 – 12 July 2006) was an Irish actor, painter, performance artist, and installation artist who also worked as a book writer for Broadway. Born in Dublin, he was the son of Cecil Brinsley Sheridan, a comic actor and panto dame at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. He attended Synge Street CBS and worked for the Irish Independent before pursuing a Bachelor of Communications at Trinity College through night study, during which time he began performing with the Trinity Players.

Sheridan's Broadway career included an appearance in 1963, with his credits encompassing Double Dublin, for which he also served as book writer. Alongside his theatrical work, he had been active as a visual artist from 1958, when his abstract landscape paintings began appearing in the annual Living Art exhibitions. His work was shown at the Paris Biennale in 1960, and in 1962 he represented Ireland at the UNESCO Convention of young painters in Paris. He received the Carroll Prize for Painting in both 1965 and 1969.

Following his time in New York, where he worked as a gallery attendant at the Museum of Modern Art while painting at night, Sheridan was awarded a scholarship to Columbia University in 1967 to pursue a master's degree in fine art. His career later extended to Australia, where he served as director of the Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide from 1975 to 1980 and as art critic for South Australia's Sunday Mail from 1977 to 1980. The Australia Council for the Arts awarded him its emeritus medal in 1994.

From 1980 to 2002, Sheridan held the position of director of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. He was also a committee member of Rosc and was elected to Aosdána, the Irish association of artists. He was married to Liz Murphy, and together they had five children. Following his death in 2006, the poet Paul Durcan wrote a poem in his honor.