Ernest
Howard Shepard was born on 10 December 1879 in London. His parents were Henry
Donkin Shepard and Jessie Harriet Lee Shepard. Ernest was the second of their
three children and had an older brother and a younger sister.
From an early age Ernest wanted to be an artist and his ambition was realised when in entered the Royal Academy School in 1987. He was one of the Academies youngest students. He received medals for drawing and painting from life, and exhibited his first picture at the Royal Academy in 1901.
It was while studying at the Academy that Shepard met his first wife Florence Chaplin. They married in 1904 and had two children. In 1907 Shepard had his first piece of work accepted by Punch and went on to contribute regularly to the magazine. During this period Shepard also received commissions from Thomas Nelson to illustrate colour jackets and black and white plates for their series of classics which included Tom Browns Schooldays and David Copperfield. He also did illustrations for other children's books including Harold Avery's The Chartered Company (1915) and E. Hobart-Hampden's The Little Rajah.
During the first World War Shepard applied for a commission in the Royal Artillery. He obtained his commission on December 14th 1915 and then joined the 105 Seige Battery and was posted to France, Belgium and Italy. In 1917 he was promoted to the rank of Captain in 1917 and then to Major in 1919 just before he returned back to England.
Throughout his army service Shepard continued to send work back to Britain
to be published. In June 1921 Shepard was asked to join the 'Punch table'
as a regular member of staff. When A.A.Milne asked E.Lucas at Punch who he
would recommend to illustrate the children's verse he was contributing to
the magazine, Lucas recommended Shepard. At first Milne was not keen to use
Shepard, but when his illustrations were a success Shepard went on to illustrate
all of the Pooh books although the two men only ever had a working relationship
and did not become close friends. Shepard used his son's Teddy Bear 'Growler'
was used as a model for the illustrations in Winnie the Pooh, Shepard didn't
think that the sketches that he did of Christopher Robin's own bear were quite
right.
Unfortunately Florence died in 1927 and Shepard remained unmarried for several years until in 1943 he married Norah Carrol.
Shepard stopped contributing regular cartoons to Punch in 1949 Throughout his career he illustrated books for many leading authors of the period, including several for Kenneth Grahame. Shepard was in fact the fourth illustrator to draw the characters for Wind in the Willows, but the only one who managed to capture the essence of the animals that Grahame had in mind. He remained busy as an illustrator for the whole of his life and he even managed to write two children's books of his own in his mid eighties, Ben and Brook (1966) and Betsy and Joe (1967). The Pooh story book released in 1976 contained new line and colour pictures by Shepard and he also coloured his original line drawings for new editions of Winnie the Pooh (1973) and The House at Pooh Corner (1974).
Ernest Shepard died in 1976, the fiftieth anniversary of Winnie the Pooh's original appearance.
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