Ernest Howard Shepard is one of the immortals.  Even those who may not be familiar with the name would instantly recognise the creature of his pen: Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore, Mole, Ratty and Toad of Toad Hall – Shepard did not invent them but he made them visible.  He is responsible for the precise form these magic names conjure in the public mind.  This exhibition of over 200 works  includes drawings and illustrations from most periods of his exceptionally long working life.  They have been released by Shepard’s Estate and for the most part have never been exhibited before.  The prices range from £100 to £19,000 and there are many which would make ideal Christmas presents.

Shepard was called by Bevis Hillier ‘the last of the great Victorian “black and white” men’.  He was born in London in 1879, the youngest child of an architect, and was encouraged from an early age to think of a career as an artist.  After a year at Heatherley’s School of Art, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools, where he was a notably young student.  He began showing at the RA while he was still a student at the Schools, and, more importantly for his future career, he had his first book illustrations published in 1900, when he was 21.  It was 1906 before his first cartoons were accepted by Punch, though he had been sending them drawings for some time.    His association with the magazine was to last about fifty years.

In 1904, he had married Florence Chaplin, also a student at the RA Schools.  She and their two children, Graham and Mary, appear often in his work of that time in various guises.  It was Graham’s teddy-bear, Growler, who was later to achieve ursine immortality as Winnie-the-Pooh.  By the beginning of the war in 1914, Shepard was well on the way to being established both as a book illustrator and as a frequent contributor to Punch.

Shepard could also be a man of action, as his war-time record proves.  He joined up as a volunteer in 1915, and by 1916 was an officer in the 105th Siege Battery in the Somme.  (His elder brother Cyril was killed in the first wave of the offensive.)  Ernest survived, and remained in the artillery until the end of the war, by which time he was an acting major with a Military Cross.  Throughout his time in the conflict he snatched time to fulfil illustrating commissions and continued to send cartoons to Punch.

It was in 1924 that A. A. Milne’s book of verses, "When We Were Very Young" appeared and the world first made the acquaintance of Christopher Robin, and, in the guise of ‘Mr Edward Bear’, of Pooh.  It was the real turning point in Shepard’s career.  His appointment in 1921 to the Punch staff had brought security, but it was the marvellously apt collaboration with Milne that guaranteed his popularity.  There followed a string of successes, many of which were to become classics: "Winnie-the-Pooh", of course, and "Now We Are Six" and "The House at Pooh Corner"; Kenneth Grahame’s "The Golden Age, Dream Days", and in 1931, "The Wind in the Willows"; Laurence Houseman’s "Victoria Regina and Gracious Majesty"; and Richard Jefferies’ archetypal boys’ story, "Bevis".

During these vintage years, Shepard continued to produce at least one drawing a week for Punch, as his contract required, and in 1935 he was made junior political cartoonist.  From 1945 to 1949 he was senior political cartoonist, a post which he undertook with professionalism but relinquished with relief.  He spent the war years in the Home Guard.   To his great sadness, his son, a naval officer, was killed in action in 1943.  Shepard had been a widower since 1927, and in 1944 he remarried.  Shepard’s granddaughter (Graham’s daughter) is still very much alive and a great authority on her grandfather’s work.  She is available for interview.

Ernest Shepard continued to illustrate books, especially after leaving Punch, which he did in 1953 at the instigation of a new editor, Malcolm Muggeridge,  who, as a new broom, was sweeping away the old guard.  New editions of "Pooh" as well as "Wind in the Willows" were in great demand, and he added new colour plates, and later full colour versions of the original drawings.  In 1957 he published "Drawn from Memory", reminiscences of his Victorian childhood; this delightful book is a marvellous evocation of a child’s-eye view of the London of the 1880s.  It was followed by "Drawn from Life" which takes up the story with his art school days.

Ernest Shepard, as well as his formidable draughtsman’s skills, had the great talent of inspiring love: both as a man in those who had the privilege of knowing him well, and, more remarkably, as an artist in the readers of his illustrated books.  His drawings satisfy the connoisseur and the child equally and inspire a competitive spirit of acquisition whenever they come up for sale.

Exhibition: E. H. SHEPARD DRAWINGS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Venue: MEDICI GALLERY, 5 CORK STREET, LONDON W1S 3LQ
Gallery hours: 10 - 6.00 Monday to Friday; 11- 4.00 Saturday

Telephone: 0845 367 0887 Sally Hunter or Nicola Blaxall

High resolution images of these and other illustrations available