Sidney Horne Shepherd

(Dundee 1909–1993 Rudgwick, Sussex)

Study of a ballerina, c.1950-55

pastel on paper

signed lower right ‘S. Horne Shepherd’

45 x 29 cm.

in its original frame

Horne Shepherd studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1927-1930, where he won a travelling scholarship and prizes for portraiture and landscape painting. He went on to teach there himself in the ‘30s and at that time was closely involved with H. Whyte’s Abbey Bookshop and its literary journal, ‘The Modern Scot’ in St Andrews. A series of portrait commissions took him to London where in 1937 he became a lecturer at Shoreditch Training College. During WWII he joined the National Fire Service and was drafted to Napiers Aircraft Factory in Acton working as a technical assistant and draughtsman before returning to Shoreditch in 1945 until 1954. There’s a scrap of a label on the reverse of this portrait with the remains of what must have been his home or studio address in Hackney. He taught art variously after that at Ealing, St Martin’s and St John Cass Schools of Art and showed at RSA, SSA, NS, Free Painters and Sculptors and abroad.