Artist's Bio

Peter Sheppard grew up in Cohasset, Massachusetts, an idyllic seaside town, where his father introduced him to fishing and the outdoors. From a long line of sportsmen, Sheppard learned early to respect nature and appreciate its beauty. His father was not only a outdoorsman but also an avid collector of sporting art, so young Peter grew up admiring and eventually studying the works of great sporting artists such as Ogden Pleissner, James Brett Smith, John Swan, and Luke Fraser. He also found inspiration from past masters, such as Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth.

Sheppard has always aspired to be an artist, from his childhood dream of becoming a Disney animator, to taking art courses throughout high school and college. He graduated from Western State College in Colorado, with a major in Commercial Recreation, and a double minor in Business and Art. Since college, Sheppard has been intimately involved with nature. After earning his U.S. Coast Guard certified Captain's License, he started his own business, Rusty Fly Fishing Charters, in 1998, dividing his year between the waters of Nantucket and Key West. A committed conservationist, Sheppard always has promoted catch and release. Sheppard has travelled around the world, fishing and hunting (or tasting wine from the barrel in Burgundy) in order to renew his awe and cultivate his appreciation for nature’s beauty, the beauty he seeks to capture on canvas.

Sheppard portrays nature from the expert perspective of a professional fly-fishing guide and seasoned sea captain. His paintings express his keen passion for the outdoors and the sporting life and share with his viewers those incredible moments -- such as the moment after you have slid the hook from the trout’s lip, feel its pulse in your palms, and see the sun flashing in the glassy rainbow of its flank -- moments that highlight every nature lover’s life.

Sheppard’s art tells the story of his own life in the outdoors. His paintings recall the adventures he has shared with family, friends and clients on the flats around Key West and the waters off of Nantucket. He shows tarpon leaping near mangroves as well as stripers striking crab-flies from the shallow Tuckernuck flats. He depicts classic Atlantic salmon of Canada’s Mirimichi River and Russia’s Kola Peninsula. Sheppard depicts the mottled brown trout of Patagonia as well as the flashing searuns of Tierra del Fuego, South America’s southern tip. He lavishes loving attention on the trout of the American West along with the pristine landscapes of Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Sheppard pays tribute to his roots—from the exquisite little brookies and big water land locked salmon of Maine to the wild trout of the Upper Delaware River. But perhaps most, it is the spirit of fishing in Alaska’s sublime wilderness alongside coastal grizzly bears for giant salmon and magnificent rainbows that Captain Pete tries to express in his art.

Sheppard seeks to paint nature with raw authenticity and brings a seasoned guide’s eye for subtleties. He can spy a bass’s shadow racing in the shallows beneath the kaleidoscopic undulation of the waves. He observes how the creature reacts, how it stalks, when it spooks, or strikes, leaps, and looks when released again into the wild. Sheppard’s paintings show the world from a fishing guide’s expert eye. He records on his canvas the minute details of the scene, offering a keenly sensitive perspective upon nature’s every changing, always fascinating continuum.

Sheppard brings the same realism and precision to painting the hunt. Driven shoots for pheasant and partridge on the seaside fields of southern Scotland’s castles provide subject matter for several paintings. Other pictures catch the sun rising over Texas marshy swamps, the view from a hidden duck blind, the anxious excited instant before an eruption of flight, the barking of guns and dogs. Bow hunting for big game in the Rockies is another of Sheppard’s passions, and his backcountry adventures naturally find their way into his art.

Now married and with a daughter, Captain Pete traded in the Key West portion of his Rusty Fly Charters for a winter home in Teton Valley, Idaho. He continues to run fishing charters out of Nantucket. He spends the rest of his time painting, seeking with bold compositions, vivid brush strokes, and evocative contrasts of color to celebrate the glorious pleasures of the sporting life.

Galleries and Associations:

The Joyce and Seward Johnson Gallery, Nantucket, Massachusetts
The Cellar, Nantucket, Massachusetts
The Nantucket Memorial Airport, Nantucket Massachusetts
Teton Arts Council Gallery at Alpine Wines, Driggs, Idaho
Member of The Artist Association of Nantucket, Massachusetts
Member of Teton Arts Council, Driggs, Idaho

Accolades:

Won 1st and 2nd place for Juried Show, Johnson Gallery, Nantucket 2009
Won 1st and 3rd place for Peoples Choice Award, Johnson Gallery, Nantucket 2008