Mildred Valley Thornton

Mildred Valley Thornton Hon. CPA, FRSA (7 May 1890 – 27 July 1967) was born Mildred Valley Stinson a Canadian portrait and landscapepainter. She studied in Toronto, Ontario and Chicago, Illinois and later married Henry Thornton a Confectioner and emigrant of England.

Education and training

Thornton's early education was in Lambton County. Artistically she trained at the Olivet College in Michigan, USA as well as the Ontario School of Art and the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago.

Private Life

Thornton was born in Rutherford in the Township of Dawn, Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. Her parents were Edward Stinson an Irish immigrant from Cork, Ireland and Clara Delitia Valentina Longman from Cook County, Illinois, USA.In 1913 she moved with her family to Regina, Saskatchewan.

Career

Thornton's career commenced at a young age when she learned about her aunt the noted sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman, an American sculptor of repute. With artistic aspirations her family encouraged her to seek out her dream of being an artist knowing a woman could be successful in the field. In the first instance she painted her surroundings of Lambton Country, Ontario to include a few portraits and later when she would attended art schools namely Olivet College, Michigan, the Ontario School of Art and Art Institute of Chicago. With family in America and living close to the U.S. border she was naturally drawn to the American art scene which at the time was far more established than the Canadian art scene.

Exhibitions

Thornton exhibited widely during her career to include Royal Commonwealth Institute;

Awards and Honours

Throughout Thornton's latter part of her career she received several awards an honours to include being elected as a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society of Arts in London, England in 1954. In 2000 Thornton was posthumously made an Honorary Member of the Canadian Portrait Academy thereby granted the acronyms Hon. CPA. In the same year she was honoured as one of the "Top 100 Portrait Artists in 20th Century Canada".

Represented

Thornton is represented by the National Gallery of Canada with her oil landscape painting "The Touchwood Hills" among other institutions and private collections worldwide.