Irish painter Steyn was of Latvian and Lithuanian descent. She studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, then from 1926 at the Académie Julian in Paris and in 1931 at the Bauhaus in Dessau. She left Germany in 1937, being afraid of the political developments of the Third Reich. She was keen on printmaking, and drew scenes of French life in Toulon and Marseilles as well as Paris, transferring her material to lithographic stones and copper plates. Steyn’s work soon began to appear in magazines, and she quite rapidly established herself as a professional artist. At the same time, though, she felt she was a beginner and still attended Paris academies. She mainly painted flower and fruit still lifes, self-portraits and portraits of friends and family, nudes, and cityscapes.
Ireland