Norah McGuinness, painter and illustrator, was born on 7 November 1901 in Lawrence Hill, County Londonderry. She studied at Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and Chelsea Polytechnic, and spent the 1920s working in Dublin as a stage designer and book illustrator. Books she illustrated include Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1925) and titles by W. B. Yeats.