Background
She was born in Dublin in 1907 to dentist William Steyn and Bertha Jaffe, who met and married in Limerick, having moved to Ireland from the town of Akmene on the borders of Latvia and Lithuania.
She was born in Dublin in 1907 to dentist William Steyn and Bertha Jaffe, who met and married in Limerick, having moved to Ireland from the town of Akmene on the borders of Latvia and Lithuania.
Stella Steyn studied at Alexandra College and in 1924 the Dublin Metropolitan School of Artist
In 1926, in the company of her mother and fellow artist Hilda Roberts, she went to Paris to study at the Académie Scandinave and at Louisiana Grande Chaumière. She enrolled at the Bauhaus in Germany in 1931. While in Paris she met Samuel Beckett, as well as James Joyce, who later asked her to provide illustrations for Finnegans Wake.
In 1928 she was awarded the Tailteann Silver Medal at the Metropolitan in Dublin.
They lived in England, where Ross worked as an academic in a number of universities. Stella Steyn was a prolific artist.
Her work can been seen at the Tatha Gallery in Fife, Scotland
Stella Steyn is the great-aunt of columnist Mark Steyn.