Shades of gray

American painter James Howell found the subject of his art in the color gray. He explored the color’s sensual variety diligently over decades. In 2022, the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop dedicated an exhibition to Howell presenting his work in the context of Albers’ paintings. This catalogue documents this remarkable artistic encounter and explores Howell’s work in all its conceptual depth, transcending the seemlingly monothematic of the color gray. His paintings are meditations on the relationship between color and light, based on a refinement of painterly means that, despite their extreme reduction, allow for a paradoxical emphasis on expression.