painter, printmaker and art teacher, was born in Sydney on 23 January 1906, daughter of Robert F. Irvine, and Florence J. née Herborn. Her father was an artist and a bibliophile who commisioned bookplates from Sydney Long and knew Julian Ashton. Ysobel was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies College and, in the 1920s, attended Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School where she contributed to the art students’ magazine, Undergrowth . In the late 1920s she studied design with Thea Proctor , then became a voluntary worker with the 'Children’s Library Movement and Leisure Time Classes’ teaching art to students after school hours. This work was later abandoned to allow Irvine to nurse her ailing mother, who died in 1939. Most of Ysobel Irvine’s prints were produced during her years at Sydney Art School, including cover designs for Art in Australia (September 1927 and December 1928). She returned to study teaching in about 1945, studying painting with Roland Wakelin. She taught 'Design and Colour Theory’ at the Double Bay Design School (where she had been Wakelin’s pupil) and at other times at Abbotsleigh and Frensham (when Ainsworth was overseas) in 1959-61.

From 1964 to 1975 she taught drawing and creative painting at the Workshop Art Centre, Willoughby (NSW), where she was described as a sweet person and a very sensitive and encouraging teacher whose classes were always extremely popular.

Writers:

Johnson, Heather

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011