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Shepherd frequently adopted the tiger subject for his wildlife pictures over the course of his illustrious career. Once when questioned about his favourite animal to see in the wild, he replied ‘The tiger particularly because it is iconic. Once you have seen a tiger in the wild, you never want to see anything else. They are just mind-numbing.’ Painted in 1988, Inquisitive Tiger in the Forest depicts a fleeting appearance of the iconic Bengal tiger. Alert and prowling, this female emerges from the shadowy vegetation of the reserve. With his famed exquisite touch, Shepherd captures a tensed body: tail flicking, ears pricked, and eyes fully engaged; all senses scouring for prey or possible danger. The dramatic essence of the subject matter is underscored by the artist’s treatment of the formal aspects of the work, chiefly in the representation of light. Encompassing an interplay of high and low tones as the tiger emerges into the beams of sunlight, the effect can be described as chiaroscuro, a painting mode where the contrasts of light are used to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. This technique has deep roots in art history, essential to the practice of artists such as Caravaggio and da Vinci, which here Shepherd assimilates into his wildlife painting to exercise the extent of its dramatic potential.

Much of the enduring attraction of Shepherd’s work comes from its optical qualities. David captured the way that the human eye focuses on the presence of megafauna in the way that the camera simply cannot, establishing the unique value of his art even in a period when wildlife photography has become increasingly popular. Shepherd, through a matrix of painterly strokes of earthy pigments, is able to convey the physicality of the savannah and scrub in which his subjects are located. His elephants, rhinos and tigers emerge from a richly textured setting, delineated in sharp detail out of an almost impressionistic backdrop. Thus, the best Shepherd paintings often convey the moment at which the viewer first spots an animal in the wild, the eye quickly focusing in on its majestic presence.

Gladwell & Patterson have long championed David’s artistic and charitable work, across the three generations of the Fuller family. Our 275-year-old gallery has been privileged to display David’s superb paintings over the decades. Together the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, the gallery held the first retrospective exhibition of David’s work since his death in January 2019. The exhibition raised awareness and funds for the Foundations continuing work with a percentage of proceeds from the sale of the paintings during this exhibition donated to the Foundation for educational projects in Zambia.