James Howell: Painting | Malerei

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.

JAMES HOWELL (1935–2014) was an American artist who dedicated over five decades of his life to working with infinite gradations of gray. From 1968, he mainly created abstract paintings and exhibited them regularly on the West Coast of the United States. In 1983, he moved into a studio located on San Juan Island, WA, where he was surrounded by the continiously shifting grays in the sky, water, and light. This environment undoubtedly influenced his artistic production. In 1992, he moved to New York, where his signature style emerged in the 1990s with his Series 10. This series explores gradations of gray, his interests in mathematics, physics, and philosophy. The artist’s work transcends mere color and speaks to the interconnectedness of all things.