Chicago born artist Diana Postel painted and exhibited for over 6 decades. She began her training at The Art Institute of Chicago. Ms. Postel received an M.A. degree in philosophy and literary criticism from the University of Chicago. After moving to New York, she enjoyed a brief career in journalism and publishing at Newsday, The New York Herald Tribune, and Doubleday. Following the birth of her two children she resumed the study of art, training extensively with Norman Raeben, son of author/playwright Sholem Aleichem and a student of Robert Henri and George Luks. After numerous years working in her studio at Carnegie Hall in New York City, she moved her studio to Northern Westchester, NY, subsequently to Aspen, Colorado, and finally to Los Angeles, CA.

Diana Postel’s paintings have been exhibited at the Rumiantsev State Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and at The Aspen Art Museum in Aspen, Colorado. Her work was on loan to the U.S. Embassy in Geneva, Switzerland from 1999 to 2001. She has exhibited in galleries in New York City / Westchester County, N.Y. / Aspen, Colorado / Ashland, Oregon and Venice, CA. Her work is in private collections throughout The United States and Europe. She received the Certificate of Excellence for Outstanding Achievement in Painting in the “Artitudes International Arts Competition”. Ms. Postel was Artist-in-Residence at the Soho Gallery “Synchronicity Fine Arts” in New York City.

Her paintings are both vibrant and insouciant, and almost always evoke a smile, perhaps because of the bold use of colors, the placement of objects, or the attitude of the subjects. Her work has been compared to the likes of Milton Avery and Henri Matisse. Although her work is not derivative of these painters, she is strongly influenced by the likes of Matisse and Picasso.  There are elements of abstraction that are not deconstruction but acutely designed sensations that delineate the essence of a still life, figure or landscape in a poetic context. Her work presents representational oils and mixed media works on paper. Her colorful still lifes and figure drawings are spontaneous, and display an ample use of pattern. Postel's vibrant laying on of color is matched by her strong, articulate line to produce explosive, vital canvases of still lifes and figures.

Artist Statement

I want my paintings to tell a story - not a factual story, not merely a rendering of inner experience, but a story of interaction. The viewer should have a sense both of what I was feeling and of how the objects were altered by my perception of them. I am a viewer as well, watching over the painter’s shoulder. The canvas is a world I enter which I discover as I work. If the painting is to succeed, every part should feel as though it may not be separated from any other part, so the whole will be something more than a collection of its parts.

As I paint, I hope to be surprised by this world that is revealed, and I hope that those who look at my canvases will also be surprised to encounter a world they did not expect to see, but one they can relate to the world they know. Surprised, but not shocked.

If there were no joy in the act of painting, I would not paint, and I hope there is some joy in the viewer’s experience of the work as well. 

Since words omit as much as they explain, hopefully the paintings will speak for themselves.

- Diana Postel, artist