Tone

The earliest surviving photograph, Nicéphore Niépce’s View from the Window Le Gras (1826/27), depended on a gradual tonal variation to give shape to the image. The work reveals that photography was born through the slow accumulation of light, where tone—not line—gives form to the world. Similarly, in Window, Pot, and Stove (1951), Roy DeCarava demonstrates how tone can be used to describe not just form but also an image’s visual rhythm, carried through a sequence of light and shadow The practice of black-and-white photography lies in understanding tonal scale—knowing how to compress or expand contrast, preserving subtle gradations, and allowing shadows and highlights to carry equal expressive weight. The artworks gathered here, though not all photographs, share a commitment to tonal construction. In drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures, the artists in Tone harness the expressive force of black, white, and every value between to demonstrate that tone functions beyond a technical condition as a unique material language. Artists in Tone include Jules Allen, Unidentified Artist, Pat Davis, Roy DeCarava, Touhami Ennadre, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Zanele Muholi, Chris Ofili, Gordon Parks, Elle Pérez, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, Paul Anthony Smith, Chiffon Thomas, Larry Walker, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

Tone is organized by Jayson Overby Jr., former Assistant Curator. Support for Tone provided by the Charina Endowment Fund and Alice L. Walton Foundation Exhibition Endowment. Additional funding provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.