Raymond Sheppard:
Mother attending to her two kittens, 1913-1958
Framed (ref: 10097)

Signed

Board prepared with gesso with scratching out

Tags: Raymond Sheppard panel pen and ink animals farms/domestic animals

Provenance: The Artist's Family; private collection

EH Gombrich  references Raymond Sheppard's 'How to Draw Birds', and includes a reproduction of one of his drawings,  in his celebrated treatise 'Art and Illusion', (1960).

On the strength of his drawings of animals - through which he gained a reputation as one of the finest artists in this field - he was made a Fellow of the Zoological Society in 1949. In the same year, he published ‘Drawing at the Zoo’, one of three collaborations made with The Studio magazine. 

Sheppard did not have the means to travel widely and based most of his drawings of animals observed at Regents Park Zoo or in a domestic context.  

Sheppard’s output as a graphic artist was prodigious, but he is less well known today than he might be, partly on account of his early death, at the age of forty-five.