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Casualty Clearing Station in France
SHEPPERSON, Claude Allin (1867 - 1921)
Casualty Clearing Station in France - Claude Shepperson
Date: 1917
Media: lithograph on paper
Acquired: 1919; Presented by Ministry of Information
Accession Number: NWM A 13201
Collection: The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals
These prints follow the journey of a wounded soldier from the Front Line, through treatment, to convalescence back at home. The organisers initially asked the artist Henry Tonks (1867-1937), a surgeon before becoming an artist, to respond to the work of the medical services. However, Tonks found the paper supplied ‘entirely unsympathetic’for drawing and declined. Shepperson was later commissioned for the subject and produced a very well received series.
Shepperson was born in Beckenham, Kent, and was a successful water-colourist, pen and ink artist, illustrator and lithographer. Having given up law he studied art in Paris and London. He is well-known for his humorous drawings contributed to the Punch magazine between 1905 and 1920.
This work forms part of the portfolio The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals, a series of 66 lithographic prints commissioned by the Ministry of Information in 1917. The series provide a broad and fascinating representation of Britain’s war objectives, military activities and effort on the Home Front.