Career edit
<ref> Stella Steyn's schooling included Alexandra College and Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art (now NCAD), where, she was taught by Patrick Touhy who introduced her to the Cézanne style of art.[1] Much of Steyn's early work was inspired by Harry Clarke and Aubrey Beardsley[2]. In 1926 Steyn moved to Paris with her mother and artist friend Hilda Roberts, she attended the La Grande Chaumiere.[3] She worked in the Arts Quarter (Montaparnasse) and called Paris “the most stimulating place for the artist who really wants to work”.[1] While in Paris she met a number of other Irish artists including Samuel Beckett and James Joyce[1]. She became friends with Joyce’s daughter, Lucia[4] and was asked to illustrate Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. She did not understand the piece, but it was explained to her by Joyce[5] and was specifically asked to respond to its musicality.[1] 1928 saw Stella’s first individual art show in St Stephen’s Green at the Dublin Painter’s Gallery.[6] She exhibited a variety of forms, including etchings, watercolours and pencil drawings.[2] That same year Steyn entered into Sur La Glace, she did not win but was awarded a silver medal at the Tailteann Games.[1] Between 1927-30 she had 19 works displayed in the Royal Hibernian Academy, four of which were of the female figure.[2] In 1929 she had an exhibition in Manhattan and embarked on a tour of France and Germany visiting Avignon, Toulon and Marseilles.[2] She felt her work was underappreciated in Ireland and returned to continue her study at La Grande Chaumiere and then Académie Scandinave.[2] In 1931 Steyn became the first known Irish artist to study at the Bauhaus School of Design at Dessau, there she was taught by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Joseph Albers.[3] She began to feel disillusioned by the methods while there,[1] but continued her study until 1932 when she moved to Kunstgewerbeschule, Stuttgart.[2] Stella met her future husband David Ross, a professor of French at University London, in 1933.[3] When she married Ross in 1938 they moved to London, she stayed mostly out of the public sphere after this rarely displaying her work.[7] However, In 1947 Ladies in a Vase was completed and in 1952 she featured in the Carnegie institute Exhibition Pittsburgh.[2]
- ^ a b c d e f O'Hanlon, Oliver (6 April 2022). "From Ranelagh to the Bauhaus – Oliver O'Hanlon on Irish artist Stella Steyn". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2022-11-09.
- ^ a b c d e f g Snoddy, Theo (2002). Dictionary of Irish Artists: 20th Century (2 ed.). Dublin: Merlin Publishing. pp. 633–5. ISBN 1-903582-17-2.
- ^ a b c "Stella Steyn 1907 - 1987, Irish Artist". adams.ie. Retrieved 2022-11-09.
- ^ Goldstone, Katrine (October 2009). "Steyn, Stella | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 2022-11-09.
- ^ Foster, Alicia (26 October 2020). "Stella Steyn: the Irish artist who went beyond the Bauhaus | Art UK". artuk.org. Retrieved 2022-11-16.
- ^ "Miss Stella Steyn Picture Exhibition". The Irish Times. 3 December 1927. p. 4.
- ^ Gorman, Sophie (24 May 2008). "Rediscovering the Wild Beast of Dublin's Art World". Irish Independent. p. 22.