David Shepherd

David Shepherd, (In David's own words) "to start with, my life was a series of disasters". Growing up in the 1930's, his one ambition was to be a game warden in Kenya and so, on leaving school, he went to Kenya and was promptly told by the National Parks people that he was not wanted. On returning to England, David was faced with two choices, One was 'to drive a bus for a living'. The other was to pursue the only other possibility, which was painting. However, he admits that he had very little interest in art and certainly no talent, for he was promptly rejected by the Slade School of Fine Art as 'untrainable'.

By chance, David met Robin Goodwin, a professional artist, who took him under his wing. David believes, "as a challenge"! After three years with Robin Goodwin, David started his artistic career pursuing his first two loves, steam railways and aviation. It was the latter that led him to the Royal Air Force who began to fly him around the world as their guest and it was a trip to Aden in 1960 which changed his life. It seemed that almost everyone wanted a painting but, more important still, the Royal Air Force flew him down to Kenya where they commissioned him to paint his very first wildlife painting and his career never looked back from that moment. It was on that same visit when he became a conservationist, when he found 255 dead zebra around a poisoned water hole.

On returning to London, David had his first one-man show of wildlife paintings. The exhibition sold out in the first twenty minutes and he has not looked back since! Apart from the tremendous demand for his originals, a number of which he donates to wildlife through The David Shepherd Conservation Foundation to pay back what in his own words is "my enormous debt to the animals I paint", his published work is avidly sought after.