Eva McKee was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1890. She studied design at the School of Art in Belfast from 1911-1912 and again in 1918-1920. During these years McKee joined the Irish Decorative Art Association and moved into their permanent studio space in Belfast at 35 Wellington Place, along with fellow member Eveline McCloy. McKee worked with a wide range of materials, including painted wood, ceramics, embroidery, jewelry, leatherwork, repoussé metalwork, and block-prints. Her work predominantly used Celtic-inspired original designs, as well as Irish landscape motifs. Her prints incorporated images with hand-lettered adages and poems in English and Irish.

McKee began exhibiting extensively at Arts and Crafts events in the 1920s, showing her work at the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland in 1921 and 1925; the Barbazanges Gallery, Paris in 1922; and the Tailteann Exhibit in 1922 and 1924. She also became a member of the Guild of Irish Art-Workers in the 1920s.

McKee and McCloy stopped using the Irish Decorative Art Association name after 1933, but they continued their partnership and their use of the 35 Wellington Place Studio into the 1950s. Eva McKee died in 1955.

Sources:

Larmour, Paul. The Arts and Crafts Movement in Ireland. Belfast: Friar's Bush Press, 1992.

Larmour, Paul. “The Arts and Crafts Movement in Northern Ireland.” In The Arts and Crafts Movement: Making It Irish, edited by Vera Kreilkamp, 57-72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.