Stella Steyn (26 December 1907 – 21 July 1987) was an Irish artist.

Life and career

Steyn was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

in 1907 to William Steyn (a dentist) and Bertha Jaffe, who met and married in Limerick, having moved to Ireland from Akmenė, Lithuania. She was Jewish. Steyn studied at Alexandra College and in 1924 the

Dublin Metropolitan School of Art The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) is Ireland's oldest art institution, offering the largest range of art and design degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the country. Originating as a drawing school in 1746, many of th ...

. In 1926, aged 18, in the company of her mother and fellow artist

Hilda Roberts Hilda Roberts (12 March 1901 – 18 June 1982) was an Irish portrait artist. Life Roberts was born in Ranelagh in Dublin 12 March 1901 to builder Samuel Roberts and Elizabeth Jackson. The family were Quakers and at one time had lived in New Ze ...

, she went to Paris to study at the Académie Scandinave and at La Grande Chaumière. She enrolled at the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

in Germany in 1931. While in Paris she met

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

, as well as

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

; the latter asked her to provide illustrations for his magnum opus, '' Finnegans Wake''. In 1928, she was awarded the Tailteann Silver Medal at the Metropolitan in Dublin. She also competed in the

art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics Art competitions were held as part of the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Medals were awarded in five categories (architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture), for works inspired by sport-related themes. The ...

. In 1938, she married David Ross, a Professor of French at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, whom she had met in Germany in 1933. They lived in England, where Ross worked as an academic in a number of universities.

Legacy

Little known in Ireland for many years, a retrospective exhibition of her work held at Dublin’s Gorry Gallery in 1995, and The Molesworth Gallery in 2001, renewed critical interest in her work. One of her paintings, ''Still Life - Flowers'', was displayed in the British Prime Minister's residence during the ministry of

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...

, chosen by his wife, Sarah Brown. Her work can be seen at the Tatha Gallery in Fife, Scotland.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Steyn, Stella 1907 births 1987 deaths Bauhaus alumni Alumni of the National College of Art and Design Irish Jews 20th-century Irish painters Irish people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Lithuanian emigrants to Ireland People educated at Alexandra College Painters from Dublin (city) Irish women painters 20th-century Irish women artists Olympic competitors in art competitions