Student Meeting

Notes

"During the 1930s Esmonde-White studied art in London and Rome, before winning a scholarship to study mural painting. It was only in the early 1950s that she expanded into easel painting and graphic art. This painting is a charmingly optimistic composition in which students of all races gather together to protest and state their views in a world free of harassment by the security forces, unlike the reality of the early 1990s when it was painted. Her experience as a mural painter is reflected by the monumental simplicity of form expressed in the figures. The lyrical harmony of the overall composition is suffused with the cheerfully warm palette with which her work is associated."¹

¹Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Works From A Private Collection of Contemporary South African Art on Permanent Loan to The Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, unpaginated.

Literature

Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Works From A Private Collection of Contemporary South African Art on Permanent Loan to The Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, illustrated in black and white, unpaginated, cat. no. 8.

Provenance

Property of a Gentleman.