Gerald C. Mead, Jr., is an artist, collector, writer, curator, and taught in the Design Department at Buffalo State College, where he received his BS in Design and BA in Psychology, and of the University at Buffalo, where he earned his MFA in Visual Studies. In 2020 Mead was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Niagara University. His highly detailed, small-scale collages/assemblages constructed from photographic materials and found objects are in the permanent collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Burchfield-Penney Art Center (Buffalo, New York), Castellani Art Museum (Lewiston, New York), George Eastman House/International Museum of Film and Photography (Rochester, New York), Oregon State University (Corvallis, Oregon) and International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction (Fort Worth, Texas), among others. His works have been in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the US and in Australia, England, Poland, Russia, and Canada and are published in five collegiate textbooks. Mead has received grants from the New York Foundation of the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts and major awards include First Place at the Carnegie Art Center National Exhibition and a Fine Arts Award from Creative Quarterly: The Journal of Art & Design. Mead is also an appointed member of the Buffalo Arts Commission, serves on several art boards and committees in the region and frequently juries local and national exhibitions.

Mead was born in Hamburg, New York, and grew up with ten siblings. His collection has been featured in more than seventy thematic exhibitions.