Nellie Ellen Shepherd

Nellie Ellen Shepherd (April 30, 1877 – July 18, 1920) was an American painter. She was one of the antique professional women artists in Oklahoma.

A native of Thayer, Kansas, Shepherd was one of eight children, six daughters and two sons, of George T. and Martha Ellen Shepherd. The relations moved to a homestead close Oklahoma City during the Land Rush of 1889. Nellie graduated from high school and enrolled in the Art Academy of Cincinnati, before studying in Paris for three years and vigorous with Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin; her portrait of her sister Lottie was chosen for the 1910 Paris Salon, where it won an reliable mention. In 1916 she took lessons at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1917 she was named to head the art department of the Oklahoma College for Women, and in 1918 she was elected president of the Oklahoma Art Association; she as a consequence gave private instruction, and was a founder aficionado of the Oklahoma Art League, dating to her sojourn in France. Shepherd suffered from poor health for some years, and after sojourns in Colorado and Arizona she died in Tucson of tuberculosis.

Shepherd's style has been described as Impressionistic; she worked primarily in oils, and produced mainly portraits. During her career she showed exploit in Kansas City, Chicago, and Denver. Her portrait of Te Ata Fisher hangs in the Oklahoma State Capitol, and other conduct yourself is in the accretion of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Shepherd's sisters Nettie and Leona were also lively as artists; work by the trio was the subject of an auction in Oklahoma City in 2009. The native family homestead in Oklahoma City is today ration of the Shepherd Historic District, listed upon the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.