"Peter Clapham Sheppard was a retiring, elusive artist whose skill and vision, untouched by the noisy nationalism of some of his peers, can now finally be properly celebrated in the remarkable artistic rediscovery that is unveiled in the pages of this book."
-- Ross King

This book is a celebration of the rediscovery of the masterworks of Toronto-born Peter Clapham Sheppard (1879-1965), an artist who played a leading role in the founding of Canada's national school of art. A contemporary and colleague of the Group of Seven, he was one of the finest artists of his generation and his work is among the best in Canadian art.

The book is full of beautiful color reproduction of Sheppard's paintings, and his work shows a wide range of sources and influences. In the early years of the 20th century he was a Realist who captured the life and times of the city and people of Toronto. Later, he was inspired by the French Impressionists to capture with paint the effects of light and weather, particularly in winter, in urban settings, especially New York City.

Termed a "radical" in his early career, rather than being inspired by his friends and contemporaries in the Group of Seven, Sheppard looked to New York painters of the urban and industrial scenes for inspiration. He was a forceful painter of urban development which he interpreted as a metaphor of national growth and resilience during World War I.

He was skilled at drawing and painting the city, capturing the dynamism of urban life, but he also traveled into the woods and wilderness of Ontario, much like the Group of Seven, to paint scenes of woods and waterfalls.

Although he was widely exhibited in national and important international exhibitions of Canadian art in his early career, over the course of the last century Sheppard has fallen into the shadow cast by the Group of Seven. From occupying a place among a generation of artists who established a national school, he died in relative obscurity.

This book casts light on a unique talent, an artist of his times, whose art matched the quality of the Group, but found inspiration beyond the sources that inspired his more famous contemporaries. This book is the culmination of a 30-year effort to bring Sheppard's name and art to its rightful place in this country's art history.

Tom Smart is the Executive Director and CEO of the McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, and the President of the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation. For seven years he was Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Frick Art & Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he developed an ambitious international exhibition program, and at the same time, he was appointed a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. He served as Acting Director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery from 1997 until 1999 and was Curator of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton from 1989 to 1997. Smart is the author of nine books and catalogues. His most recent book is the critically acclaimed Alex Colville: Return, which moved criticism of Colville's works to a new intellectual level. His 1995 book The Art of Mary Pratt: The Substance of Light won the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Association Booksellers Choice Award, the Studio Magazine Award of Merit, and the Printing Industries of America Award of Merit. It was included in Great Canadian Books of the Century.

Tom Smart's profile page

Louis Gagliardi's profile page

Except for Carr, Tom Thomson and the Group, publications on early 20th century Canadian artists unrelated to exhibitions are rare. The financial risk is often too great, and a book such as this on Sheppard guarantees nothing for his reputation. But it is also a worthy risk that will be a springboard for his profile in the short term. In the long term, it will be the resource to spark and fuel the curiosity of future art historians, collectors and writers. That Smart and Sheppard's signal partisan, Louis Gagliardi, have achieved this for Sheppard, and that the book will remain, is an important addition to the artist's legacy.

Globe and Mail

Canada Book Award Winner

Canada Book Awards

A stunning new book chronicles and highlights the life and work of this incredibly talented artist. Tom Smart is the award-winning author of this and several other critical biographies, catalogues and books on Canadian artists... This large coffee table style work published by Firefly Books is a celebration of rediscovery of an outstanding Canadian artist.

CBC Radio Canada International

The book comes alive through images of urban scenes in Toronto, Montreal, and New York. The depictions of snowy 1920s Montreal in particular, with their confident daubs of white paint, seem remarkably modern, as do excellent close-up sketches of water rushing along rocky streams in northern Ontario... Overall, Sheppard is presented as a talented artist whose interests aligned more with John Sloan and the American Ashcan School than his immediate contemporaries, which Smart suggests is why his work has been sidelined. This book corrects that grave oversight and provides readers with a more expansive picture of historical Canadian art.

Quill and Quire