Sheppard witnessed the urbanization and many historical events that took place in Canadian and American cities during the first half of the twentieth century. In this regard, Sheppard saw himself as aligned with the contemporaneous American society of artists known as the Eight, and later the Ashcan School, rather than with any Canadian movements at the time. Members of these American groups depicted the bustling streets of New York City in a colourful, expressive and anti-academic manner. Sheppard exemplifies this approach in many of his scenes of urban life of the 1920s, including paintings of Toronto, Montreal, and New York City.
The vibrant oil painting “Bandsman (West India Regiment)” depicts very specific and lesser known historical figures of the twentieth century. The West India Regiment was an infantry unit of the British Army, recruited from and typically stationed in the Caribbean colonies, formed in 1795. The Regiment served in West Africa during the late nineteenth century and in the Middle East during World War One. Dating to 1923, Sheppard’s painting portrays two members of the Regiment’s marching band, which would occasionally hold ceremonial functions in London and Toronto. The band members wear the characteristic red felt cap with a white tassel, known as a pugri. The uniform of the West India Regiments was very similar to that worn by British Line Infantry until 1858 when Queen Victoria, impressed by the dress of the French colonial zouaves, requested that the men of the West India Regiment have a similar uniform.
Sheppard’s painting documents the West India Regiment in its later years, before it was disbanded in 1927. The regiment was briefly revived in 1958 during the short-lived Federation of the West Indies, but finally abandoned in 1962.
The dating of this artwork (1923) is based upon the oil sketch of this subject having been included in the Ontario Society of Artists Small Picture Exhibition, held at the Art Gallery of Toronto in October of that year (the sketch was no. 176 in the exhibition).
