Ernest Howard Shepard was born into a middle class family in London in 1879, and having
shown artistic promise as a child he later enrolled in the Heatherley School of Fine
Art in Chelsea in 1897.
A year later he transferred to the prestigious Royal Academy School.
With his studies complete he spent a couple of difficult years trying to get established
as a professional illustrator.
Evebtually some book commissions came his way and by 1906 he'd had moderate success
with an edition of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, and Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas
Hughes.
Among the clients Shepard had particularly wanted to work for was Punch magazine, and
eventually in 1907 they accepted a couple of his drawings.
Having got his foot behind the door he managed quite quickly to become a frequent contributor.
His drawing style was far more sketchy than any of his contemporaries at the magazine,
and stylistically he was more aligned with Phil May, who had died young in 1903 but was
a significant influence on his spare, gestural inking technique.
He usually left politics to others and his humour was generally confined to social humour
and the peculiarities of the British class system, and it was his own - the middle class
- which were most frequently satirised.
Although he was in his mid-thirties when World War 1 broke out in 1914, he was commissioned
as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. He served in military action on a regular
basis and he was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry.
Despite being an actual combatant in several battles he carried on contributing to Punch
from war-torn Belgium and France. Some of his drawings made light of the appalling reality
of war, but others were a compelling record of the danger and misery they faced.
On his return to civilian life he was offered a full time position as a staff artist at
Punch, and Shepard was delighted to accept the job.
At this time things had gone quiet for book commissions but in 1923 one of his colleagues
at Punch recommended Shepard as the illustrator for a book of verse by A. A. Milne titled
When We Were Very Young.
Milne was initially far from convinced that he was the right person for the job.
But when Shepard's illustrations were used to accompany extracts from the book published
in the pages of Punch Milne completely changed his mind. The book was subsequently published
in 1924 and it sold in large numbers.
Now a convert, Milne insisted that Shepard should illustrate his latest book Winnie-the-Pooh,
and even offered him a percentage of his own royalties in addition to his fees from the
publisher as an inducement.
The book was published in 1926 and of course the success it had and has now continued to
have for almost 100 years has become legendary in the world of children's publishing.
Although they never became friends and they were at best professionally cordial with each
other, Shepard's illustrations and Milne's stories stories were nevertheless a marriage
made in heaven.
In the same year Shepard had also completed 60 full page line illustrations for an edition
of Samuel Pepys' diary and it should be remembered that he was still working at Punch supposedly
full time.
His partnership with Milne continued and the second book of verse Now We Are Six with came
out a year later.
It repeated the precise formula of the first book of verse, and it repeated its success.
In the following year tragedy struck when Shepard's wife died unexpectedly in her early
forties.
Shepard was understandably grief stricken, but as many creative people tend to do in
such times he immersed himself completely in yet more work as the only way to handle
his grief.
The second Winnie the Pooh book The house at Pooh Corner, was published in 1928.
Once again Shepard's ink renditions of the characters and stories were perfectly aligned
with the frivolous and occasionally bittersweet sentimental text.
By this point he had become completely comfortable with his cast of characters and how they would
behave, and the book produced arguably even more visual delights than the first one.
But after this book the two men never collaborated again and went their separate ways.
In 1930 Kenneth Grahame approached Shepard to persuade him to illustrate a new edition
of his book the Wind in the Willows, which had first been published in 1908.
But although he saw and enthusiastically approved Shepard's early drawings for the project he
died just before it was published in 1931.
Shepard's scribbly pen technique and complete mastery of rural scenes went on to become
the definitive visualisation of the characters and story, and like the Pooh books this edition
has become a classic children's masterpiece.
Throughout the 1930s other books featuring his illustrations appeared in rapid succession,
including the novel Bevis by Richard Jeffries in 1932 and Laurence Houseman's Victoria Regina
in 1934.
On top of which he was commissioned to create some new watercolour illustrations for a book
combining both of A. A. Milne's original books of verse.
He was still regularly creating cartoons for Punch, and in the early 1930s he created his
first full page illustration for the magazine with the rare privilege of using full colour.
Quite a few more followed and this thoroughly absorbing light comic series proved that he
was every bit as expressive and able with colour as he was with monochrome.
1938 saw the publication of another Kenneth Grahame book, The Reluctant Dragon, but it
went almost unnoticed at the time as everybody was by now gearing up for another inevitable
war.
Punch had been warning of the danger presented by Hitler even before 1933 when he took control
of Germany, and Shepard in particular created many images exposing the dictator's true intentions
and the likely consequences for the rest of Europe.
Shepard was in his sixties by the time war began, but he showed no signs of slowing down.
He even found time to serve in the home guard, better known as Dads army.
Following the war there was little activity in the publishing world as Britain struggled
to regain something approaching normality.
Work for Punch was still part of his day to day activity but it was 1949 before he illustrated
another book, Bertie's Escapade by Kenneth Grahame.
In 1953 at the age of 65 he re-married, but this was also the year the new editor at Punch
decided the magazine needed a more contemporary look.
And Shepard was informed his services were no longer required.
Although he was angry and upset about his dismissal he had plenty to keep him occupied
and between 1954 and 1956 he illustrated an incredible total of 16 different books.
A collection of Shepard's drawings and written reminiscences about his life titled Drawn
from Memory was published and was popular enough to warrant a second volume titled Drawn
from Life in 1961.
And in that year his interpretation of the tales of Hans Christian Anderson was also
published.
By now Shepard was 82 years old
Although A. A. Milne had died in 1956 the enduring popularity of Winnie the Pooh kept
Shepard busy into old age.
He had already created some completely new images in colour and these delightful watercolours
were used in spin-off books and other merchandising.
How much if anything Shepard was making from the use and occasional abuse of his images
I've been unable to uncover.
And in 1965 when Shepard was 86 years old Walt Disney studios released their Americanised
version of the pooh stories.
The background art was created as suitably styled atmospheric pen and watercolour illustrations,
but the characters were inevitably formalised so they could be controlled better by the
animators and then cel painted completely flat.
The result, like the Americanised voices of the characters did not go down well with hardcore
Shepard enthusiasts, including a much younger me.
What Shepard himself thought of them isn't recorded.
That was also the year of the publication of his own story Ben and Brock.
And it did well enough to encourage him to write a second titled Betsy and Joe.
But their success was moderate at best and they are now largely forgotten.
For years he had resisted repeated inducements to add colour to his original pen and ink
drawings for both Winnie the Pooh books and Wind in the Willows, and eventually he relented.
But unlike the colour illustrations he had created from scratch some years earlier these
rather clumsily applied loose washes on top of the original monochromes didn't do anything
for the images other than make them more marketable.
After a long, eventful and successful career as an illustrator Ernest Howard Shepard died
at the age of 97 in 1976, coincidentally the same year as Winnie the Pooh’s 50th birthday.
In 2001 Disney made a on-off payment of a staggering 350 million dollars to own and
control the rights to Winnie the Pooh. And it's the Disney version which now proliferates,
both as drawings and particularly as merchandise.
But I'm happy to discover that their exclusive hold on the franchise ends in 2026, so there's
hope that Shepard's originals won't be entirely forgotten.