Claude Allin Shepperson ARA 1867-1921) - 1908 Watercolour Evening Murmuration

Description

A beautifully atmospheric rural scene showing a village church at dusk with murmurations of birds circling in the dying light of the fading sun. The artist has signed, dated and inscribed to the lower left corner. On wove.

Condition

The condition is typical for a picture of this age including some discolouration.

Size

18.4 x 32.3cm (7.2" x 12.7")
Sheet: 20.7 x 35cm (8.1" x 13.8")

Artist Biography

Claude Allin Shepperson ARA ARWS ARE RI RMS (25 October 1867 – 30 December 1921) was a British artist, illustrator, and printmaker specializing mainly in social scenes and landscapes.
He was born in Beckenham, Kent, England on 25 October 1867. Shepperson married Mary Isabel (born 2 November 1868) July 10, 1894.

Shepperson worked in a wide variety of media including oil, watercolour, chalk, charcoal, paster, ink and pencil, and he was a practised etcher and lithographer. Bryant notes that for line drawings, Shepperson would first sketch nudes in charcoal on very thin banknote paper and draw clothes in ink over this, usually at near-reproduction size. Percy Bradshaw, commenting on a Punch reader's remark that Shepperson was a Sketcher of Aristocrats, said that Shepperson would rather be called an aristocrat who sketches.
Shepperson exhibited widely, and his work is held in many notable galleries. These include the Tate Gallery, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the National Museum of Wales.
Shepperson was elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS) in 1900, and also of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) in that year. Five years later, in 1905, Shepperson resigned his membership of the RI. In 1910 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society. In 1919 he was elected both an Associate of the Royal Academy, and of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (ARE).
Shepperson was at his studio at 5 Mulberry Walk, Chelsea, London when he died on 30 December 1921.