Susan Isabel DACRE ✿

Susan Isabel Dacre (1844–1933) was an English artist of the Victorian era. She was born in Leamington, Warwickshire, and was educated at a convent school in Salford. For the decade of 1858–68 she lived in Paris, first attending school and later working as a governess.

After a winter in Italy in 1869, she returned to Paris, and was present during the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. She returned to England in 1871 and began studying art at the Manchester School of Art, where she won the Queen's Prize in 1875.

She began a lifelong friendship with fellow artist Annie Swynnerton; the two women pursued their art studies in Rome and Paris between 1874 and 1880. Around 1872, Lord Leighton dictated notes and observations on his methods of painting and composing his pictures to Isabel Dacre, during a stay on the island of Capri.

Portrait of Susan Isabel DACRE by Annie Swynnerton

Dacre was a noted Women's suffrage campaigner. With Annie Swynnerton she founded the Manchester Society of Women Artists in 1876; Dacre also served as president of the organization. For a decade (1885-95), Dacre was a member of the executive committee of the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage. Dacre's portrait of Lydia Becker is one of her best-known works.