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Early life and family
Stella Steyn was born on 26 December 1907 in Dublin. Her parents were William, a dentist, and Bertha Steyn (née Jaffe). The Steyn and Jaffe families had emigrated from Russia to Limerick in the 1870s. Steyn had 3 older siblings, Henry, Arthur, and Mabel. Steyn studied at Alexandra College and in 1924 enrolled in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. In 1926, aged 18, in the company of her mother and fellow artist Hilda Roberts, she went to Paris to study at the Académie Scandinave and at La Grande Chaumière. While in Paris she met Samuel Beckett, as well as James Joyce. Steyn became friends with Joyce's daughter, Lucia. Joyce later asked her to provide illustrations for his magnum opus, Finnegans Wake. She held solo shows in London and Dublin in 1928 and 1930, one of the youngest exhibiting artists in Dublin at the time.

She enrolled at the Bauhaus in Germany in July 1931. She is the only Irish artist known to have studied at the Bauhaus, and she was taught by Josef Albers, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky. However, she said her time in Dessau was "a false move" and that it led to her appreciating "painting which had its roots in tradition".

Steyn married David J.A. Ross, a linguist, in 1938. The couple settled in England. Steyn gave early art lessons her nephew, William (Billy) Noyk, the son of Michael Noyk and her sister Mabel.