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The Ib Jorgensen Collection 11
th
November 2014
51
Stella Steyn (1907-1987)
Still Life with Flowers and Fruit
Oil on canvas, 40 x 55cm (15.7 x 21.6”)
Stella Steyn studied at Alexandra College and the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.,
where she cameunder the influence of Harold Clarke. On leaving Dublin she went directly
to Paris to study at La Grande Chaumière under Charles Despiau. She became part of
the Parisian scene and was welcomed into the Joyce family, becoming a close friend of the
troubled Lucia Joyce. In 1929 she took on the daunting task of illustrating Joyce’s Finne-
gan’s Wake. A Francophile, she was constantly back and forth between her native Dublin
and her adopted Paris. A strong admirer of Cézanne, she was also heavily influenced by
Matisse but her influences were not confined to France. Steyn, at the age of twenty-five,
moved to the Bauhaus at Dessau in Germany and came under the influence of Kandinsky.
In her autobiographical writings she stresses, however, that it was to pre-Cubist Paris that
she felt most indebted to ‘the painting which had its roots in tradition, which included
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism but did not include the contribution made by the
Bauhaus or the École de Paris in their late stages.’
€1,500 - 2,500