This is the first article in a series detailing the life and work of painter Diane Esmond, whose surviving collection lives with her son, Victor Wallis, in Somerville, Massachusetts. Its details are pulled, substantially, from interviews with Wallis and writer and researcher Eloise Duguay; excerpts of letters she wrote to her son; and information published by art historians working to uncover collections plundered by Nazi forces during World War II.
A dark-haired woman with a reserved demeanor watches over a Parisian cafe. She is quiet, observant. It is Paris, 1962. From her table, where she sits alone, her company paper and pen, the scene filters through her flitting wrist, down a light-fingered grip, to ink tip. The sharp jaw of one man, the casual lean of another, unbeknownst to each character, they are taking shape on her page.
After a while, she slips out, returning home to a studio filled with bold colors and shapes, canvases awash in a style suspended somewhere between abstract and figurative, thick, textured strokes making the images move with the day’s changing light, transforming under the angle of the sun.
Before she picks up a brush, she puts on a record. To the tune of “the Third Man” theme song, she begins to work. When the song ends, there is a pause, and it starts again from the beginning. She relaxes into the repetition.
After a while, the painter draws back from her canvas. She gazes at it, uncertain, nimble fingers exchanging brush for cigarette, a veil of doubt descending across her face behind wisps of smoke.
Despite a wave of positive reviews—both written and oral, from journalists, critics, and peers—her pieces have not been selling well. Praise will lift her spirits, fleetingly. It will reassure her of what she believes to be true and what she has given up so much to achieve: that the quality of her work is on par with some of the 20th-century greats. But, alone in her studio, that sureness wilts inside her.
She gazes at her collection of recent canvases. She is good—she thinks—and is getting better—she is sure—but she is falling short somewhere. Perhaps it is her aged style, coming from an era that is out of vogue but not yet antique. Or perhaps she needs to work harder, wake earlier, travel more.
All she is sure of now is that—just like for all her life—she is not quite what others are looking for.
The French painter Diane Esmond was born in London in 1910. She would have been born in Paris, where she was raised, but after one girl, her father was sure his second child would be the son he was waiting for. A son of his would share his British nationality, and, so, would be born within the borders of the United Kingdom.
That Diane was born a girl did not deter Edward Esmond from living out his fantasy. As a man of the bourgeoisie, he could do what he liked with his life and with his offspring. He raised his second child differently than his first, and later third, daughters, Sybil and Lulu. He would not go so far as to tell Diane she was a boy but would play out bits in which she was.
He would raise her above his head and tell her, “repeat after me, ‘I am a big brave soldier boy.’” For playing her part, she would receive a dried apricot. Later in life, Diane gifted her father a book of poetry. Inside she inscribed it with the message, “from your disciple and only son.”
This upbringing did afford Esmond something of value: greater freedom and a sense of self determination. She would embody this in many ways. She owned racehorses—making a name for one of France’s greatest racing fillies of the 1930s, Pearl Cap, bred by her father—and golfed her way to the top of the 1926 Girls Amateur Championship at Stokes Poges, ousting the competitor who knocked her older sister out of the semifinals.
Her independence also manifested in the selection of people she surrounded herself with. Esmond was adamant she would marry a man who made an honest living and that she would do so for love, not status. She followed through on that in 1937 when she joined her life with that of Dr. Robert Wallich (Wallich later changed the spelling of his last name to Wallis while living in the United States and passed that spelling on to his children). She also befriended similarly defiant women, one of her closest friends from the 1930s onward being the great American war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.
But most of all, Esmond’s trueness to herself showed up in painting. She began indulging in art in her early teens. While those around her worried themselves with the frivolities of 1920s Parisian high society, she became captivated with brush and easel.
Establishing an identity as an artist - 1930s
Early on, Esmond painted mostly portraits and scenes of people, including depictions of circus performers off stage and in dressing rooms. She also dabbled in still lifes and landscapes, which took a more prominent role in her work in later years. She played with light, color, and texture. With bold strokes, she dappled her canvases in shades of shadow, instilling her human subjects with a sort of mysterious solemnity.
Her process began with pen and paper. She would immerse herself in a real-world scene and sketch it in intricate curling designs. She was not afraid to make marks that would disappear from the final piece. Her paints never accompanied her into the wild. Instead, she jotted notes for herself, labeling objects with the colors she saw them in. Back at her studio, she would dress the sketches in full color with layers of paint.
She liked to listen to records while she painted, often playing the same songs on repeat. French singers like Édith Piaf and Charles Trenet frequented her soundtrack alongside a selection of Calypso tunes.
In her 20s, Esmond’s work earned her a place studying under painter Edouard MacAvoy at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. As she developed her style, she was inspired by painters from the late 1800s to early 1900s whose work had fallen out of fashion. The influences of Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse showed up in her brush strokes. But with money being of no concern, she created what she liked, regardless of what was in demand.
In the 1930s, Esmond began to attract a small following and participate in group exhibitions around Paris.
In 1938 Esmond’s first child was born. Cradling Victor Wallis in her arms immediately after his birth, she was awash in love and struck by the deep connection she felt to the baby, but in years to come, motherhood would prove a tumultuous experience for her. Victor was cared for by a full-time nanny, allowing Esmond to continue avidly pursuing of her work
Political disruption - 1940
It was a different force than motherhood that would rip Esmond from her greatest passion.
In 1940, World-War II German forces advanced across Europe. As Jews, the Esmond family’s money could not protect them from soldiers at their door, but it could keep them from being there when the knock came.
There was no time to pack the contents of the ornate four-story cement-facade home at 54 Avenue d’lena, where her parents lived and where most of Esmond’s paintings were stored. Esmond, her parents, and sisters fled the exclusive, tree-lined neighborhood on Paris’ right bank by car.
Esmond’s life’s work was left behind.
This article has been updated as of 8.14.2024
Read parts II and II of this series: Plundered and A Legacy Emerges
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