Grisaille (2011-12) explored the conceptual impact of a centuries-old painting paradigm on modern and contemporary figures, taking a monochromatic grey palette as its organizing principle. In addition to a concise selection of rare historical works, including a pair of 16th-century panel paintings by the Workshop of Albrecht Dürer, Grisaille included more than 30 seminal pieces by artists as diverse as César, Glenn Brown, Vija Celmins, Luciano Fabro, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, Rudolph Stingel, Betty Tomkins, and numerous others who reinvigorated the investigation of the monochrome palette and classical techniques of grisaille.

14th-century European artists popularized the grisaille method, deploying grayscale paintings meant to imitate sculpture. Giotto used grisaille for the lower registers of his renowned frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy; Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, and other key figures of the Northern Renaissance used grisaille figures on the outer wings of triptychs to imitate the look of stone and create the illusion of sculptural relief through painting. The convincing three-dimensionality achieved with figures rendered en grisaille continued to find favor in fine and decorative arts through the 18th century, and the technique became a popular preparatory tool for oil painters in the 19th century, permitting them to work out the modulation of shade and light in the development of complex spatial compositions. With the proliferation of black and white photography in the late 19th century and the 20th century’s emphasis on direct (alla prima) painting, grisaille evolved into a far more conceptual paradigm.

Grisaille was the second in a series of thematic survey exhibitions at Luxembourg & Dayan organized by curator and writer Alison Gingeras, exploring specific trends in modern and contemporary art. The exhibition presented works on loan from significant private collections and the estates and studios of artists. On view were numerous objects never before exhibited publicly. Among these were new works by Richard Prince and John Currin and a 1968 Jasper Johns painting, Screen Print 5, loaned by the artist from his collection.