Estella Solomons

Estella Frances Solomons was one of the leading Irish artists of her generation. She came from a prominent Dublin Jewish family. She studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art. She was a member of Cumann na mBan and was active during the revolutionary period. She was noted for her portraits of contemporaries in the republican movement and her studio was a safe house during the War of Independence. She married poet Seumas O'Sullivan, founder of The Dublin Magazine, and helped to support it financially. The couple hosted regular salons in their home which attracted Irish artists, writers, politicians and intellectuals. Solomons was a close friend of writer Kathleen Goodfellow, whom she met in Cumann na mBan and who was a patron of The Dublin Magazine. Solomons was elected an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1966, having been an associate since 1925.