Cock and Hen Linocut by Rupert Shephard

Shephard studied at the Slade School of Art from 1926 to 1929. On leaving the Slade Shephard became a schoolmaster, painting in the evenings and exhibiting with the London Group; his first solo exhibition was in 1939. He worked as a draughtsman and war artist from 1940 to 1945 and moved to South Africa after the war where he became director of the Michaelis Art School at the University of Cape Town; he returned to England in 1962 following the death of his first wife. In 1972 Shephard was elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and continued to paint until his end of his life.