Sister Mary Brady OP (1922-2014), born in Tamworth, is a self-taught painter, though she did receive critiques from Joshua Smith and Norman Carter. While still living in Tamworth, she was encouraged by Hal Missingham, then the Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, to exhibit in the Archibald. Her first entry, in 1947, was prominently exhibited. In 1950, Brady moved with her parents to Sydney, and began to exhibit more actively with the Contemporary Art Society and Blaxland Galleries and to undertake portrait commissions. She entered the Archibald several more times, and won the Hunters Hill Prize for Landscape in 1964. She won the Portia Geach Prize in 1966, 1971 and 1975, with portraits of Graham Edgar, Larry Sitsky and Elizabeth Rooney. In between, she entered the Dominican Order in 1967.
