Solomons, Estella (1882–1968)

Irish painter. Solomons studied under two of Ireland's leading artists, Walter Osborne and William Orpen and was an early member of the Irish impressionist school. Becoming increasingly politically active, she joined the republican feminist organization Cumann na mBan and was active in the 1916 uprising. During the Anglo-Irish War her studio was used as a safe house by republican volunteers. Her politics, combined with an increasing interest in Rembrandt, may have influenced her shift from landscape and still-life studies to a greater concentration on subtle and critical portraiture.