Joseph Sheppard is a renowned artist whose work has appeared in various galleries, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art. He studied at the Maryland Institute of Art and has written numerous guides on art, including How to Paint Like the Old Masters, Drawing the Figure, and Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists.
Sheppard has been commissioned to do monumental sculpture, murals, and other public work. Most notably, in Baltimore alone, he is responsible for the bronze of famous baseball player Brooks Robinson (2011); the Pope John Paul II Monument at the Basilica (2008); and the Holocaust Memorial sculpture (1988). Among several murals in the city are the seven large paintings in the Baltimore City Police Department (1972) and most recently Schaefer's Splash at the National Aquarium (2019). In 1987 he executed murals that completely covered the ballroom of the Palmer House in Chicago.
In addition his work can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Butler Institute of Art in Ohio, the Davenport Municipal Art Gallery in Iowa, the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, the Midwest Museum of American Art in Indiana, the Arizona Museum of Art in Arizona, the Brookgreen Gardens Museum of American Sculpture in South Carolina, the National Art Museum of Sport in Indiana, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., the Museo Dei Bozzetti in Pietrasanta, Italy, and the Consiglio della Toscana, Florence, Italy.
