Theresa Thornycroft | |
---|---|
Born | 1853 |
Died | 1947 |
Residence | Matfield, Kent |
Nationality | English |
Occupation | Sculptor Painter |
Spouse(s) | Alfred Ezra Sassoon |
Children | 3, including Siegfried Sassoon |
Parent(s) |
Thomas Thornycroft Mary Francis |
Theresa Thornycroft (1853 – July 1947) was an English sculptor and painter.
Born Theresa Georgina Thornycroft, she was a member of the inventive and artistic branch of the Thornycroft family. Her father was sculptor and engineer Thomas Thornycroft (1815–1885) and her mother sculptor Mary Francis equally sculpting as Mary Thornycroft (1814–1895). Her brother Sir Hamo Thornycroft RA, sisters Alyce Thornycroft and Helen Thornycroft were artists, her brother Sir John Isaac Thornycroft was the founder of the Thornycroft shipbuilding company.
A gifted artist, she exhibited her paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts in London before she turned twenty-two.
She married Alfred Ezra Sassoon (1861–1895) of the Jewish Sassoon family. Because she was Anglo-Catholic, he was disinherited by the Sassoon family for marrying her. They had three sons:
After they separated, her husband died aged 33 in 1895 in East Sussex from tuberculosis, and she continued to live in the village of Matfield in Kent, and was immortalised in the memoirs of her son Siegfried.