Anthony Shiels was born in Salford, UK in 1938. After attending Heatherley's School of Art in London, he moved to St Ives, Cornwall where in 1961, following the resignation of Barbara Hepworth, he was made a member of the committee of the influential Penwith Society of Arts. In St Ives he ran the progressive 'Steps Gallery', where he showed artists like Brian Wall and Bob Law. He had several solo exhibitions in London before then leaving St Ives following a drunken incident, when he threatened police with real guns that he had obtained from painter-friend Terry Frost. 

1938 in Salford