Focusing on the human form, Joseph Sheppard has created paintings and sculptures in the figurative realist tradition. He has studios in Baltimore, Maryland, and Pietrasanta, Italy. He studied with Jacques Moroger and Reginald Marsh and closely read the anatomical writings of Leonardo DaVinci and 14th-century physician, Andreas Vesalius. In Sheppard's genre and figure works, many of the figures seem off balance and twisted in their poses, giving his paintings a sense of motion as though the figures are interacting with each other. His canvases are filled with "an endless parade of dancers, acrobats, and athletes." egarded as a "role model for figurative realists", Sheppard stated: "I believe that technical skill is an important element in art and that the figure is not only a subject but the most elevated form of art."