His father, George Frederick Shrady, Sr., was one of the physicians who attended Ulysses S. Grant during the former president's struggle with throat cancer.

Shrady's wife, Harrie Moore, submitted some of his paintings to an exhibition of the National Academy of Design without his knowledge, and they sold quickly.

His first major commission came in 1901, for George Washington at Valley Forge, an equestrian statue for Continental Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York.

In the twenty years Shrady spent executing its sculpture program, he studied biology at the American Museum of Natural History and dissected horses to gain a better understanding of animal anatomy.

It consists of a colossal equestrian statue of Grant atop a marble pedestal with bas relief plaques, guarded by four lions.