Original Oil on Board 'Vale of Health Hotel' Vale of Health, Hampstead' by Toby Horne Shepherd - Signed & Framed c.1957

Historically interesting painting of the now demolished, Vale of Health Hotel. The Vale of Health Hotel was built on the land in 1863 and later converted into artist studios. Henry Lamb painted his portrait of Lytton Strachey there in 1912 and Stanley Spencer had a studio from 1914 to 1927. The hotel was demolished in 1964. During the period after the war up to the early 1950s Bernard Dunstan lived and had a studio nearby. Born in Dundee and educated at Harris Academy, he attended the Dundee School of Art from 1924-1926 and then Glasgow School of Art where, in 1927, he won a travelling scholarship and prizes for portrait and landscape. In 1929 he took the Painting Diploma, winning a post-diploma scholarship, and became Assistant Art Teacher at Glasgow School of Art 1930-1932. He was also executing medical diagrams at about this time for the Glasgow Royal Infirmary A series of portrait commissions brought him down to London in 1933, and he subsequently referred to these years as the most unsatisfactory period of his artistic life. He became a lecturer at Shoreditch Training College from 1937 until he joined the National Fire Service in 1941. In 1943 he was drafted by the Ministry of Labour to Napiers Aircraft Factory in Acton where he worked as a technical assistant, aero-engine tester and draughtsman, returning to Shoreditch in 1945 to resume his duties. He was appointed Senior Art Lecturer in 1947 and remained at Shoreditch until 1954. Thereafter he had a number of part-time teaching posts, including Ealing School of Art, St Martin’s School of Art and the Sir John Cass School of Art. He retired in 1974, somewhat reluctantly as he had always enjoyed teaching - and was indeed an inspiring teacher with an unrivalled ability to bring out the best in his students. He was also happy to be a student himself in later life, attending sculpture classes for some years; his stone and marble carvings display his superb feeling for form. His remaining years were spent in West Sussex producing, as always, an amazing amount of work, but now mainly water-colours, drawings, monoprints etc. rather than oil paintings. He was an exceptionally fine figure draughtsman, and this is apparent even in his more abstract and adventurous work. He also enjoyed still-life subjects and there are many examples of these in virtually every medium, including lithographs, screen-prints and monoprints etc. Provenance; The artist's studio