sculptor, worked as a sculptor at Sydney in the 1940s and 1950s. She had always wanted to sculpt but had little free time with four children to rear. In 1946, however, she completed a diploma in sculpture at East Sydney Technical College. She first exhibited her work – a figure carved in wood – in a competition held at the AGNSW in December 1952 to choose Australia’s representatives to the international sculpture competition, The Unknown Political Prisoner , held at London in March-April 1953 ( see Margel Hinder ). At this time Delroy was described as 'seven times a grandmother’, living with her husband in 'one room which will eventually become her studio’ when their house under construction at the northern beach suburb of Avalon was completed.

Delroy not only worked with wood and copper carving decorative panels and murals, but also in clay. Her major public commission was probably the two ceramic panels on a religious theme set into niches flanking the front door of the chapel at the Stella Maris Hostel in Greenwich, Sydney.

Little information is available about the later life of Isobel Delroy, although it is known that she taught ceramics to Adult Education classes, executed many commissions, chiefly for decorative wood and copper panels, and planned to carve murals and stone sculptures for her own home and garden.

Writers:

Steggall, Susan

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011