Isabelle Borg : an artist who happened to be a Woman

Abstract

Isabelle Borg was born in London on 7 September 1959 to a Maltese father, Aldo, who was an electronic engineer, and an Italian mother, Renata, a culinary artist. The Borg family settled in Malta in 1973 when Isabelle was 14 years old, but Isabelle returned to London in 1979 and started working in advertising and graphic design at KPHS Advertising and the Decca Record Company in London until February 1980. This is where she met her lifelong partner, the photographer Graham Cooper. She received her fine arts degree from the Camberwell School of Art in London where she studied for four years between 1982 and 1986. She then settled back in Malta, setting up home in Floriana in 1988, where she also had her studio. She graduated with an MA in Art History from the University of Malta in 1994 and she was employed as a full-time Assistant Lecturer in Fine Art and History of Art at Junior College, the following year. She maintained close ties with the University of Malta and had lifelong friends in the Department of Art History. She died aged 51 in 2010 after having been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2007.