Art Collections Online
Convalescence in England
SHEPPERSON, Claude Allin (1867 - 1921)
Convalescence in England - Claude Shepperson
Date: 1917
Media: lithograph on paper
Acquired: 1919; Presented by Ministry of Information
Accession Number: NWM A 13205
Collection: The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals
Country estates and houses across Britain were requisitioned for use as military hospitals during the First World War. In Wales, St Fagan’s Castle, now part of St Fagans: National History Museum was converted into a convalescence hospital.
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.