Internationally renowned artist and ambassador for wildlife, David Shepherd CBE, will be at Twycross Zoo for one day: Saturday 4^th October 2008 from 10.30 am until 4.30 pm. David will give two short informal talks on his life and his passion for conservation realized through the wildlife foundation he founded in 1984. This is an ideal opportunity to meet the man in person and view his many paintings, books and cards. There will also be a raffle, with a David Shepherd print as the prize.

David Shepherd has been called "an artist who seems to stride across continents". In today's scheme of things, he is a larger-than-life figure who is regarded by many people as being the world's leading wildlife painter.

As a small boy, David collected books on Africa; he had one ambition only to be a game warden.  His nearly career was, to quote his own words ‘a series of disasters’.  After leaving school in 1949, he went to Kenya to fulfill his ambition to be an artist only to be politely told that he was not wanted.  When he returned home, David was faced with two choices: ‘to drive buses or starve as an artist’.  Rejected by the Slade School of Fine Art as having ‘no talent whatsoever’, it was by good fortune that he met Robin Goodwin, a professional artist, who took him under his wing and to whom he owes so much of his success.

David started his career as an aviation artist and owes a great deal to the Royal Air Force.  Although never having worn a uniform, they recognised his talent and started commissioning aviation paintings, which involved flying all over the world with them.  David freely admits that he has had some of his most exciting times with the Services, on HMS Ark Royal, going down in a submarine and, with the RAF, flying in almost every type of aircraft, from Harrier Jump Jets to V-Bombers, and the one remaining Lancaster.

It was the Royal Air Force who flew David to Kenya in 1960 and this proved to be a catalyst in his life.  They commissioned his very first wildlife painting and, to quote David’s own words, “I have never looked back”.

In 1960 he became a conservationist overnight when he witnessed 255 zebra lying dead around a poisoned waterhole in Africa.  He realised then that, through his paintings, which were already in great demand, he could repay his debt to the wildlife that was immediately bringing him such success. Since that day in 1960, he has raised over £3million through his own efforts, and together with supporters of the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, which he set up in 1984, he has given away all of this in grants to help save critically endangered mammals in their wild habitat and to benefit the local people that share their environment.