William Shepherd

William Shepherd was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. After graduating from the University of Wyoming in 1976, he stayed in Laramie for a few years, then moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, preferring to remain in the West rather than settle in a major city. His career as a professional artist began while he was still in college, when he began selling his landscape paintings through a gallery in Denver, Colorado.

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Shepherd’s early landscapes were vistas of Wyoming. Over time, his work evolved into large-format paintings of tumbled stones and streambeds. After several decades of landscape painting he decided he needed a change and began painting still lifes. As a young man, he had been fascinated by the Indian regalia and Western accoutrements he saw in the homes of his ranch friends, and these became natural subject matters for his new focus.

Shepherd’s paintings are in collections throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. He was recently invited to participate in the exhibition Out West: The Great American Landscape, which traveled to the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and the Shanghai Museum. His works have hung in the residence of U.S. Ambassador Mark Grossman in Ankara, Turkey; the residence of U.S. Ambassador Michael Sullivan in Dublin, Ireland; and the residence of U.S. Ambassador Keith Lapham Brown in Copenhagen, Denmark. Shepherd’s paintings also hang in the collections of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Gans, Mr. and Mrs. William Jans, Robert Redford, Gerald Peters, and in various other notable collections.

His paintings have been shown in numerous museum shows, including those of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa; the Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, New York; the Rockwell Museum, Corning, New York; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

William Shepherd is represented by Astoria Fine Art, Jackson, Wyoming.