Some More on the Elusive Ivy Achoy….

Posted: July 9th, 2025 | No Comments »

I recently posted on the mystery of Ivy Achoy. This was after seeing a portrait by Cedric Morris at the Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines exhibition at Charleston in East Sussex (the old home of Vanessa and Julian Bell). Among the various Morris painted portraits is one dated as 1922 (which may or may not be correct) and said to be of “Ivy Ichaloy”. It is a portrait of a Chinese woman in a cheongsam-style dress from the upper body up. Anyway Ivy Ichaloy turned out to Trinidadian-Chinese Ivy Achoy. You can read the post here and the comments that added some information from relatives and scholars in Trinidad.

And now my thanks to Trapper Byrne of the USA who sent me Ivy Achoy’s (successful) application to enter the United States in 1922 from the US National Archives; it’s part of the Chinese Exclusion Act files. (Achoy qualified for a student exemption to the immigration ban).

This also casts some doubt on the 1922 date on the Cedric Morris portrait at Charleston. It seems Achoy was in the USA and, perhaps, looks a little older in the portrait (though of course it is a painting and not a photograph so…) – below, which would make the date post-1922. I am not sure when Ivy left the US and if she travelled from there to the UK.

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