Rupert Shephard

Shephard was born in Islington, the son of an engineer and a charity worker, who were both Quakers and keen amateur artists. He attended Repton School, before studying at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1926 to 1929.

After graduating from the Slade, Shephard taught at Raynes Park County School whilst painting at night and often in pubs and music halls. In 1929, he began to exhibit with the London Group at both the Wertheim Gallery and the Coolings Gallery. Throughout 1937 to 1939 Shephard exhibited with the founding members of the Euston Road School, William Coldstream, Claude Rogers and Victor Pasmore at the Storran Gallery whilst continuing to exhibit with the London Group. Shephard held his first solo exhibition at the Calman Gallery in 1939.

File:Lorries Transporting Landing Craft, Royal Albert Docks, London (1945) (Art.IWM ART LD 5293).jpg

From 1940 to 1943, Shephard worked as an industrial draughtsman but continued to paint and submitted several paintings, on industrial production topics, to the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC. These included a series of five pictures, Women in Industry and a scene inside an aircraft repair workshop.{{cite web |author=Imperial War Museum|url=http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1050001072|title=War Artists archive - Rupert Shephard |access-date=19 November 2013|work=Imperial War Museum}} In the spring of 1945, WAAC offered Shephard a full-time contract with the Ministry of War Transport, which he completed with a number of scenes painted in London.{{cite book|author=Brain Foss|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2007|title=War paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939-1945 |isbn=978-0-300-10890-3}}

From 1946 to 1948 Shephard taught at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.{{cite book|author=Grant M. Waters|publisher=Eastbourne Fine Art|year=1975|title=Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950}} In 1942, Shephard had married his first wife, the daughter of a British businessman based in South Africa and in 1948 the couple moved to Cape Town with their children. Shephard spent fifteen years in South Africa as the director of the Michaelis Art School at the University of Cape Town.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=05C02RhJZCkC&dq=Rupert+Shephard+war+artist&pg=RA1-PA353|title=Rupert Norman Shephard |year=2012|access-date=19 November 2013|work=Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators, Volume 1 (OUP).|isbn=978-0-19-992305-2 |author=Stephen Bury |publisher=Oup USA }} He had ten solo exhibitions in South Africa and also exhibited internationally. In 1962 his wife died and Shephard and his three children returned to Britain. In 1965 Shephard married the artist Nicolette Macnamara whose sister, Caitlin, was the widow of Dylan Thomas. Shephard knew Nicolette from when they were both students at the Slade together and had previously painted portraits of Thomas and both sisters. In 1972 Shephard was elected to Royal Society of Portrait Painters.{{cite book|author=David Buckman|publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd|year=1998|title=Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 2, M to Z |isbn=0-95326-095-X}} Shephard continued to paint portraits and exhibition pieces but failing eyesight ended his career in 1990 and two years later he died of cancer in London.{{cite web |author=Sally Hunter|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=51316&back=|title=Shephard, Rupert Norman (1909-1992)|date=May 2005|access-date=19 November 2013|work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; OUP 2004; online edn.}}

Collections holding works by Rupert Shephard include the Imperial War Museum, the RAF Museum, the National Portrait Gallery,{{Art UK bio|retrieved=20 November 2013|ref=1}} and the British Museum.{{cite web |author=British Museum|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?searchText=Rupert+Shephard&view=list|title=British Museum, Search the Collection - Rupert Shephard |access-date=21 November 2013|work=British Museum}}

Shephard's painting Portrait of Mrs Marie Lydia Grant was burned by demonstrators during the Rhodes Must Fall protests at the University of Cape Town, UCT, in February 2016.[https://www.groundup.org.za/article/here-list-art-destroyed-uct/ GroundUp, 9 June 2017] One other painting, Portrait of JP Duminy, was removed from UCT in 2016.[https://arttimes.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Art-Under-Threat-at-University-of-Cape-Town-Dossier.pdf Dossier Art under threat at University of Cape Town - South African Art Times, 2017]

• 1954 Capescapes (verse illustrated with lino-cuts),
• 1966 Passing Scenes: Eighteen Images of Southern Africa (Stourton Press,London)
• 1977 Cockcrow and other Verses
• 1977 Reissue of Passing Scenes: Eighteen Images of Southern Africa

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• {{Art UK bio}}

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Category:1909 births

Category:1992 deaths

Category:20th-century English male artists

Category:20th-century English painters

Category:Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art

Category:English war artists

Category:English male painters

Category:English portrait painters

Category:Painters from the London Borough of Islington

Category:People educated at Repton School

Category:Artists from the London Borough of Islington

Category:People from Islington (district)

Category:Royal Society of Portrait Painters

Category:World War II artists

Category:20th-century British war artists