[3] Sally Ryan's went to school in Montreal and her artistic career began in 1933, where she exhibited her first sculpture at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in Toronto.

[5] Aged twenty, Ryan had a successful solo show at the Cooling Gallery which included her portrait busts of Ellen Ballon, Paul Robeson and Arturo Toscanini.

[4] In 1940, Ryan's work was included in Philadelphia's International Sculpture Exhibition, prior to her second solo show in New York the following autumn.

[6] Ryan used much of the inheritance she received from her grandfather to build a wide-ranging art collection, alongside her life-long friend, Kathleen Garman.

[1][2][7] Variously described as "aloof", "private" and androgynous in appearance, Ryan was gay and lived with another women, who became the chief beneficiary of her will.