Stella Steyn

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

Early life Steyn was born in Dublin in 1907 to William Steyn (a dentist) and Bertha Jaffé, 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, she was taught by Patrick Tuohy who introduced her to the Cézanne style of art. Much of Steyn's early work was inspired by Harry Clarke and Aubrey Beardsley.

Career In 1926, She worked in the Arts Quarter (Montaparnasse) and called Paris “the most stimulating place for the artist who really wants to work”. and was asked to illustrate Joyce's Finnegans Wake. She did not understand the piece, but it was explained to her by Joyce and was specifically asked to respond to its musicality. She exhibited a variety of forms, including etchings, watercolours and pencil drawings.

Between 1927 and 1930 she had 19 works displayed in the Royal Hibernian Academy, four of which were of the female figure. becoming the first known Irish artist to study at the Bauhaus. She was taught by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Joseph Albers. a professor of French at the University of London, whom she had met in Germany in 1933. They lived in England, Steyn stayed mostly out of the public sphere after this rarely displaying her work. However, In 1947 Ladies in a Vase was completed and in 1952 she featured in the Carnegie institute Exhibition Pittsburgh.

One of her paintings, Still Life - Flowers, was displayed in the British Prime Minister's residence during the ministry of Gordon Brown, chosen by his wife, Sarah Brown. Her work can be seen at the Tatha Gallery in Fife, Scotland.