Jean Shepeard was an actress and artist who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Sharing a flat with Peggy Ashcroft, she became a member of the Emotionist group of painters, musicians, philosophers, poets and actors. In 1930 she exhibited with Francis Bacon and Roi de Mestre in Bacon's Queensbury Mews rooms, then described as a 'studio for modern interior decoration'. Contemporary reviewers praised the sensitivity, beauty of line, vigour and character of her drawings of heads, while Bacon's and De Maistre's paintings were thought to be mainly intended as decoration, adapted to 'the ambient style of the room in which they hang'. Later, critic Gui St Bernard would write that 'Miss Shepeard is mistress of the difficult art of elimination'. A fringe member of the Bloomsbury set, Shepeard went on to exhibit with Vanessa Bell, RO Dunlop and others at the Modern Picture Library. Meanwhile, she performed in every major theatre, appearing alongside John Gielgud, Anthony Quayle, Sybil Thorndike and many other leading actors, and progressed to a moderately successful film career. Her other drawing subjects included Bacon, JB Priestly, Peggy Ashcroft and Vanessa Bell.
