Leslie Thornton

Leslie Tillotson Thornton (26 May 1925 – 9 February 2016) was an English sculptor.

Education and early life Born in Skipton, West Riding of Yorkshire, Thornton attended Keighley Art School from 1940 to 1942 before being conscripted to work as a Bevin Boy in the Yorkshire coalmines to aid the war effort in 1943. From 1945 to 1948 he attended Leeds College of Art on a County Art Scholarship and from 1948 to 1951 trained at the sculpture school of the Royal College of Art.

Career In 1951 Thornton graduated from the Royal College of Art and joined the Royal Society of British Sculptors. He began work as a visiting lecturer at Bromley School of Art, Hammersmith School of Art and Central School of Art, before taking the post of Senior Lecturer at the University of Sunderland in 1965. In 1970 he left this position to head up the Sculpture Department at the University of Stafford. In 1969 he published an 8-page book, titled Recent Sculpture

In 2004 the Moore Institute in Leeds included him in their 100 Years of Sculpture exhibition, and from 2007 to 2009 he appeared in the Arts Council's touring Geometry of Fear exhibition.