Gaston Diehl: A True Champion of Post-war Art

An auction will shortly reveal part of Gaston Diehl's collection, eleven years after his death: thirty works by Pierre Alechinsky, Bernard Buffet, Maurice Estève, Alfred Manessier, Serge Poliakoff, Gérard Schneider and Zao Wou-ki, among others – all artists defended by the critic throughout his career. Most of these oils and watercolours were gifts; some were dedicated to him in friendship. An art historian and influential journalist, Diehl published some twenty books, not to mention a hundred and eighty-odd press articles and catalogue texts. But this unobtrusive man was not someone to put himself forward. He was always impeccably dressed: "I never saw him without a tie, even on holiday" – says his eldest daughter, Arielle North. This aesthete was emotional and highly sensitive, too. During a tribute paid to him in 2000, at the…