Reviews
Stuart Preston (New York Times, 1953):
Her still-lifes, robust in color and carefully considered in design, are grounded in the French tradition of stylish realism as brought up to date by Matisse and Braque. But she has now partly broken with that serenity, creating a thunderous view of Notre Dame, as well as pictures of café interiors, with an expressiveness that goes far beyond mere description. Color is deeper and the handling of paint (rich and adept throughout) bolder.
René Deroudille (Geneva, 1968):
With a few references to Cézanne, to the symbolists and Cubists, Diane Esmond at the Galerie Motte appears as an artist of a generous temperament whose eclecticism in no way diminishes her obvious talents.
Her still lifes sing a symphony of cold colors, wreathed in gold and punctuated with touches of lemon yellow. On the theme of “bathers,” Diane Esmond deploys an architectural assurance, combining rhyming forms securely anchored in the structure of the painting.
Carlyle Burrows (New York Herald Tribune, 1973):
…Diane Esmond, who might be simply a brilliant member of the Ecole de Paris, but who, it seems to us, has more to her art than that […] That she uses color brilliantly, suggesting the romantic, middle period work of Braque, or somewhat also the high-keyed vivid contrasts of Van Gogh, tends a good deal to indicate her trend.
Barbara Wright (Arts Review, London, 1978):
Diane Esmond lives in the Ile de France but frequently visits the Caribbean, and it is the glorious, luxuriant vegetation of the West Indies that inspires her oils. They are large, covered from corner to corner with thick paint, and based on two preponderating colours, both of which are luminous and exciting: one is jade green, and the other a sort of “midnight” blue. These paintings suggest, but never particularly realistically, forests and jungles. They are based on the ideas of tree trunks, greenery and flowers, all crowding in on each other. You feel you are actually in the middle of these forests, but there is never any sense of oppression. And though often the tree trunks seem to be leading you upward, there is no movement – just presence.
The drawings are also all based on trees, flowers and foliage, but are a great contrast. In black ink on white paper, here it is the space that gives them their special quality. It is very differently disposed in each drawing, and varies greatly in both size and shape. The contrast between the spontaneity here and the density of the thought and layers of meaning in the oils, helps one to appreciate the particular qualities of both. The gouaches are something different again, and equally interesting.
Robert de Suzannet (Le Figaro, Paris, 1978):
Here is a collection of drawings, gouaches, and paintings that can be placed half way between the figurative and the abstract, as though the artist wanted to evoke the countryside of St. Lucia that she loves while avoiding the constraints of everyday reality. What stands out is an extraordinary series of gouaches in which one finds, in all its intensity, the frenzy and the luxuriance of the tropics, with astonishing mixtures or daring juxtapositions of greens and blues that range from turquoise to violet.
We should also mention the huge canvases – likewise inspired by the forest of St Lucia – in which the dense vegetation is conveyed in its all-powerful embrace by mans of an adroit play of almost brutal lines which become tangled in what seems like a chaos of colors. The eye can admire in all this an evident talent and savoir-faire.
Stuart Preston (New York Times, 1953):
Her still-lifes, robust in color and carefully considered in design, are grounded in the French tradition of stylish realism as brought up to date by Matisse and Braque. But she has now partly broken with that serenity, creating a thunderous view of Notre Dame, as well as pictures of café interiors, with an expressiveness that goes far beyond mere description. Color is deeper and the handling of paint (rich and adept throughout) bolder.
René Deroudille (Geneva, 1968):
With a few references to Cézanne, to the symbolists and Cubists, Diane Esmond at the Galerie Motte appears as an artist of a generous temperament whose eclecticism in no way diminishes her obvious talents.
Her still lifes sing a symphony of cold colors, wreathed in gold and punctuated with touches of lemon yellow. On the theme of “bathers,” Diane Esmond deploys an architectural assurance, combining rhyming forms securely anchored in the structure of the painting.
Carlyle Burrows (New York Herald Tribune, 1973):
…Diane Esmond, who might be simply a brilliant member of the Ecole de Paris, but who, it seems to us, has more to her art than that […] That she uses color brilliantly, suggesting the romantic, middle period work of Braque, or somewhat also the high-keyed vivid contrasts of Van Gogh, tends a good deal to indicate her trend.
Barbara Wright (Arts Review, London, 1978):
Diane Esmond lives in the Ile de France but frequently visits the Caribbean, and it is the glorious, luxuriant vegetation of the West Indies that inspires her oils. They are large, covered from corner to corner with thick paint, and based on two preponderating colours, both of which are luminous and exciting: one is jade green, and the other a sort of “midnight” blue. These paintings suggest, but never particularly realistically, forests and jungles. They are based on the ideas of tree trunks, greenery and flowers, all crowding in on each other. You feel you are actually in the middle of these forests, but there is never any sense of oppression. And though often the tree trunks seem to be leading you upward, there is no movement – just presence.
The drawings are also all based on trees, flowers and foliage, but are a great contrast. In black ink on white paper, here it is the space that gives them their special quality. It is very differently disposed in each drawing, and varies greatly in both size and shape. The contrast between the spontaneity here and the density of the thought and layers of meaning in the oils, helps one to appreciate the particular qualities of both. The gouaches are something different again, and equally interesting.
Robert de Suzannet (Le Figaro, Paris, 1978):
Here is a collection of drawings, gouaches, and paintings that can be placed half way between the figurative and the abstract, as though the artist wanted to evoke the countryside of St. Lucia that she loves while avoiding the constraints of everyday reality. What stands out is an extraordinary series of gouaches in which one finds, in all its intensity, the frenzy and the luxuriance of the tropics, with astonishing mixtures or daring juxtapositions of greens and blues that range from turquoise to violet.
We should also mention the huge canvases – likewise inspired by the forest of St Lucia – in which the dense vegetation is conveyed in its all-powerful embrace by mans of an adroit play of almost brutal lines which become tangled in what seems like a chaos of colors. The eye can admire in all this an evident talent and savoir-faire.
