Anthony Palliser was born in 1949 of an English father and a Belgian mother. He studied at Downside school and graduated from New College Oxford. In 1967 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In 1970 he settled in Paris where he still lives and works. From 1995 to 1997 he taught as visiting professor at the New York School of Visual Arts in Savannah, Georgia. He remains a frequent visitor to Savannah and Charleston, SC. where the unique landscapes of the low-country remain a constant source of inspiration.

To date he has had 24 one-man exhibitions and countless group shows all over Europe and in the USA. His highly acclaimed 1996 show "Performers" at Lincoln Center in New York showed his enthusiasm for the theatre and cinema. His well-known portrait of Graham Greene hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London and that of Paddy Ashdown in the House of Commons. His most recent commissions included portraits of the philanthropist Alberto Vilar for the Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, and of the eminent historian Sir Michael Howard for King's College, London. He has also recently completed portraits of the Irish poet Derek Mahon, American actor Howard Hesseman and celebrated publicist Bobby Zarem

He recently completed a series of very large paintings of heads. He asked friends to pose, chosen as much for the diversity of their physical appearance as for the emotion they convey. Some are well known, others not. The scale (162 x 130cms) allows for a much looser approach pictorially, the ambition being to abandon portraiture as such and be left with painting.

A book of Palliser's collected works published by Editions du Regard in France came out in February 2005. To coincide with its publication, an exhibition of thirteen "Large Heads" was held at the Ricard Foundation in Paris.