Ernest Howard Shepard (1879-1976)
E H Shepard was born in London and studied at Heatherley’s School and at the Royal Academy. He began exhibiting at the RA in 1901 and his first Punch cartoons were published in 1907. He served with the Royal Artillery in the First World war and was awarded the Military Cross at Ypres. At Punch, he was made Second Cartoonist in 1935 and Senior Cartoonist from 1945-1949. In 1924 he provided the illustrations for A A Milne’s When We Were Very Young verses (published in Punch) and this in turn led to Shepard illustrating Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books.
‘Of the important artists of the pre-war and war period… Ernest Shepard departed least violently from convention… He started from a sound knowledge of how to draw and an interest in middle-class life in its less strenuous aspects. Shepard’s work was distinguished by movement. Compare any of his drawings of any period with the usual Punch drawing. He does not seem to have depended on a studio pose or a diagrammatic composition. One feels the studies for the pictures were made on a wind-ruffled sketching-block… Above all he was thinking in terms of the dance. With Shepard the rest of Punch began to look static… Even where the scene in Shepard was a conversation one feels that there was a wind in the room and that someone had just moved and that someone else was about to move.’ (Price, 1957).
Collections
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
British Museum
Leeds City Art Gallery
Victoria and Albert Museum
Sources and further reading
Bryant M and Heneage S (1994), Dictionary of British Cartoonists and Caricaturists 1730-1980, Scolar Press
Dolman B (1981), A Dictionary of British Artists, 1929, Antique Collectors’ Club
Johnson J and Greutzner A (1999), British Artists 1880-1940, Antique Collectors’ Club
Waters G M (1975), Dictionary of British Artists 1900-1950, Eastbourne Fine Art
E H Shepard was born in London and studied at Heatherley’s School and at the Royal Academy. He began exhibiting at the RA in 1901 and his first Punch cartoons were published in 1907. He served with the Royal Artillery in the First World war and was awarded the Military Cross at Ypres. At Punch, he was made Second Cartoonist in 1935 and Senior Cartoonist from 1945-1949. In 1924 he provided the illustrations for A A Milne’s When We Were Very Young verses (published in Punch) and this in turn led to Shepard illustrating Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books.
‘Of the important artists of the pre-war and war period… Ernest Shepard departed least violently from convention… He started from a sound knowledge of how to draw and an interest in middle-class life in its less strenuous aspects. Shepard’s work was distinguished by movement. Compare any of his drawings of any period with the usual Punch drawing. He does not seem to have depended on a studio pose or a diagrammatic composition. One feels the studies for the pictures were made on a wind-ruffled sketching-block… Above all he was thinking in terms of the dance. With Shepard the rest of Punch began to look static… Even where the scene in Shepard was a conversation one feels that there was a wind in the room and that someone had just moved and that someone else was about to move.’ (Price, 1957).
Collections
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
British Museum
Leeds City Art Gallery
Victoria and Albert Museum
Sources and further reading
Bryant M and Heneage S (1994), Dictionary of British Cartoonists and Caricaturists 1730-1980, Scolar Press
Dolman B (1981), A Dictionary of British Artists, 1929, Antique Collectors’ Club
Johnson J and Greutzner A (1999), British Artists 1880-1940, Antique Collectors’ Club
Waters G M (1975), Dictionary of British Artists 1900-1950, Eastbourne Fine Art