Featured Canadian Artist of the Day

Sunday Morning

Helen Parsons Shepherd 1962

Helen Parsons Shepherd (16 January 1923 – 9 May 2008) was a Newfoundland and Labrador artist, known for her portraits and still-life paintings. Her father was the poet R.A. Parsons, and her brother was the painter Paul Parsons.

As an adult, Parsons studied at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. In 1944, she was accepted into the Ontario College of Art, where she was influenced by the Canadian portrait painter John Martin Alfsen. Parsons studied under Franklin Carmichael of Canada's Group of Seven in her first year at OCA. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours in 1948. That same year, she married Reginald Shepherd, a fellow student and artist. She moved to St. John's with Shepherd and co-founded the Newfoundland Academy of Art (NAA), the first art school in the province, where she taught from 1949–61.