ERNEST HOWARD SHEPARD (1879-1976). English illustrator and cartoonist, best remembered as the original illustrator of A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books, and a longtime contributing cartoonist for Punch magazine.
c. 1943 WW II Era, original Pencil Cartoon artwork, measuring 8 x 10.75 Inches and Signed, "E.H. Shepard" in pencil at the lower left, is titled "The Fates Decide." The drawing depicts a downcast figure standing before Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat at Berchtesgaden, gazing up at a large crystal ball in which the silhouetted figures of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin confer over the fate of Europe.

Ernest Howard "E.H." Shepard (1879-1976) is best remembered today as the original illustrator of A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books, but he built a long parallel career as a political cartoonist for Punch magazine, contributing regularly for decades and becoming one of the publication's principal cartoonists through the Second World War. Shepard's wartime work for Punch frequently returned to the figure of Hitler as a subject of topical satire, comparable examples including "Germany Shall Never Be Encircled" (Punch, April 12, 1939) and "Festung Europa" (Punch, September 13, 1944, now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum). The present cartoon is catalogued within the official Punch Magazine Cartoon Archive. Its depiction of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin conferring together as the "Big Three" places the cartoon's subject within the period of their wartime summit meetings at Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in 1945, when the Allied leaders jointly determined the strategic and political course of the war's endgame. The cartoon presents in very nice condition with light overall expected age tone and scattered handling marks to the sheet consistent with its working use as original art for publication.