Putting on her Dress

Shepard was born in St John’s Wood, the son of an architect and amateur painter and the grandson of the watercolour artist William Lee. He was educated at St John’s Wood Preparatory School, Colet Court School and St Paul’s. He studied art at Heatherley’s, winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools in 1897. He lived in Glebe Place, Chelsea before moving to Shamley Green near Guildford in 1904. At this period he was contributing cartoons and illustrations to Graphic, Illustrated London News, Printer’s Pie, London Opinion, Nash’s, Odd Volume, Pears Annual and The Sketch. He was first published in Punch in 1907 and thereafter became a regular contributor. During the First Wold War he served in the Royal Artillery, being posted in France, Belgium and Italy and achieving the rank of major and being awarded the Military Cross at Ypres in 1917. After the war he returned to his work as a cartoonist, eventually succeeding Bernard Partridge at chief Cartoonist at Punch in 1945. However, Shepard is now best know for his work as an illustrator, particularly of A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh and Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows.