λ DAVID SHEPHERD (BRITISH 1931-2017), THE FLYING SCOTSMAN

拍品描述

λ DAVID SHEPHERD (BRITISH 1931-2017) FLYING SCOTSMAN Oil on canvas Signed and dated 75 (lower right) 56 x 104.5cm (22 x 41in.) Unframed David Shepherd once described Terry Cuneo to us as A far better artist than I am.. He and David both began as commercial artists, painting their own stuff in their own time. Both had a far wider range of subjects than the majority of admirers now realise. We were fortunate to be good friends with both of them and privileged to have access to much that others may not even recognise as Cuneo's or Shepherd's work. David was a near neighbour of mine long before I married Bill McAlpine and I remembered watching him teaching painting from a signal box in a TV series when my children were small. When my daughter Vicky Palmer was trying to become an established artist: it was David who helped and encouraged her. When did he switch from trains to animals Of course he didn't: they were always all in the mix along with chocolate box twee interiors with benign old men and perfect children. Now of course all than anyone wants is a raging bull elephant or Flying Scotsman roaring through the night. With Terry, the story was the same: Princess Anne once commented that she passed his painting of the Coronation (her mother's) every morning en route to breakfast and never ceased to admire the fact that she recognised most of the congregation as he depicted them. Had she then any idea he painted trains I doubt it. Now, everyone knows Terry because of a mouse his cat brought to him when he was mid-painting. How many have seen the series he did for his children of mice dressed up for outings, tea parties etc. Or his pictures of his girlfriend on beach or riverbank: one easily mistaken for the work of one of the Impressionists, the other so romantic and detailed that it is perhaps by Richard Dadd Terry was more prolific than David. A day without painting is a day wasted he said if asked what he did to relax. The two are forever linked in this family's memory and the world is a sadder place without two such giants of the art, railway and conservation world. I count myself so fortunate to have had them and their families as friends. Lady McAlpine.

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