Stella Steyn trained in Dublin, Berlin and Paris in the 1920s, meeting Samuel Beckett and James Joyce for whom she undertook the illustrations for ‘Finnegan’s Wake’. These illustrations were featured in the avant-garde magazine, ‘Transition’. These works kickstarted Steyn’s career. In 1931, Steyn joined the Bauhaus academy of art where she was taught by renowned artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Joseph Albers, though she would later claim movements such as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism as greater influences. In 1938, Steyn married, moved to England and disappeared from public life. She did have a Solo show in 1951 and in a joint show in 1954 with Ivon Hitchens. This was a partnership that was based on the freshness both artists give to floral and still-life pieces.