Ella Rose Curtois


Ella Rose Curtois was a British artist, known for her sculptures in marble and terracotta.

Biography

Curtois was born at Branston in Lincolnshire. Her parents were Anne Henrietta, a landowner who had eleven children and her husband Atwill Curtois, a local rector who died in 1868. Ella Rose Curtois created sculpture pieces in both marble and terracotta, usually of genre subjects and portraits.
Between 1885 and 1897 she exhibited several works at the Royal Academy in London and at the Paris Salon. Ella Rose Curtois and her father were responsible for carving the choir screen in Branston church, most of which was destroyed in a fire on Christmas day 1962. However, several of her carvings of saints were saved and remounted in the case of the new organ.
Curtois lived most of her life in London and Paris where she died during World War II. Her will left a few small legacies to a friend, but the residue went to the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. They used it to erect a new gallery which was opened in 1959. Both Ella Rose Curtois and one of her sisters, Mary Henrietta Dering Curtois, have work on show there.