Joseph Sheppard
“I believe that technical skill is still an important element in art. I believe that there is no object to non-objective, that minimal is less, that junk sculpture is junk and form in painting relates to the illusion of three dimensions. My art is based on the return to those standards which demand the knowledge of composition, perspective, color, three dimensional form, draftsmanship and anatomy.”
Born in Owings Mills, Maryland in 1930 and currently residing in Pietresanta, Italy, Joseph Sheppard has received several dozen awards and commissions during his fifty plus years as a professional painter and sculptor. An elected member of the National Sculpture Society, commissions include the Pope John Paul II statue and Holocaust Memorial monument in Baltimore, Maryland, as well as numerous portraits for US and international dignitaries, including a US President, a Cardinal and a Pope. In 2009 Sheppard received a prestigious international sculpture award from the Italian arts group Circolo Culturale Fratelli Rosselli which recognises sculptors from around the world who have made “extraordinary contributions to the art world”. In 2010 Sheppard made history when a US$ 6 million 5,500 square foot gallery was opened at the University of Maryland College for the purpose of displaying his life’s work, the first time that a permanent gallery has opened in the state to house the works of a single living artist. Sheppard has published numerous books on the subject of art and is considered to be a living legend of the traditionalist art movement.
