Identity area
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Title
Date(s)
- Twentieth Century (Creation)
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Extent and medium
Silver. 50mm
Context area
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Archival history
13/06/2024
Content and structure area
Scope and content
1928 Tailteann Games silver medal First Prize awarded to Stella Steyn for Art. Stella Steyn was an Irish-Jewish artist. Medal by Irish Jewellery Company. Of Russian and German extraction, Stella Steyn was born in Dublin and educated at Alexandra College and the Metropolitan School of Art. She was an outstanding art student and her tutors recognised in her “a pupil of genius” (Belfast Observer, 15 June 1930). In 1926, in the company of her mother and fellow artist Hilda Roberts, she went to Paris where she met James Joyce, who later asked her to provide illustrations for Finnegan’s Wake. She was the only Irish artist to have studied at the Bauhaus in Germany (1931) and its teachings convinced her to adhere to her avant-garde principals for the rest of her days. Whilst she exhibited rarely in Ireland after 1930, retrospective exhibitions at the Gorry Gallery in 1995 and the Molesworth Gallery in 2001, and auctions of works from her estate in more recent years did much to renew interest in her work.
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Reverse hallmarked Dublin, "I.J.C.Y", 1928 for Jewellery & Metal Manufacturing, Dublin. Silver medal depicts goddess Tailtiu with words 'An bainriogan Tailte' on obverse, with inscription 'Art First' on reverse with Celtic-design motifs, heraldic crests of the four pronvinces and words 'Aonac Tailteann, baile ata cliat 1928'.
