Euan Macleod was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1956. He was awarded a Diploma of Fine Arts (Painting) by the Ilam School of Fine Arts, Canterbury University, in 1979, before moving to Sydney in 1981. He has held more than fifty solo shows in New Zealand and Australia and has taken part in numerous group exhibitions in Australasia and internationally.

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Euan's work is represented in many private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Euan has won art prizes in Australia, including the Archibald in 1999, the Sulman Prize in 2001, the Blake Prize in 2006, the New South Wales Parliament's inaugural Plein Air painting prize in 2008, the Tattersall’s Landscape Prize in 2000 and 2009, the Gallipoli Art Prize, 2009, and the King’s School Art Prize in 2011.

In 2010 Piper Press, Sydney, published a monograph, Euan Macleod: the Painter in the Painting, written by Gregory O'Brien. 

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Surface Tension: the art of Euan Macleod 1991-2009, a Tweed River Art Gallery touring exhibition, curated by Gavin Wilson, toured six regional Australian galleries, beginning at the S H Irvin Gallery, Sydney, in November 2010.

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The touring exhibition, Euan Macleod - Painter, curated by Gregory O'Brien, travelled to several New Zealand regional galleries between 2014 and 2017.

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In 2019 Macleod collaborated on High Wire, a book of drawings and words, with Lloyd Jones. It was published in 2020.