Monochromatic Magic

An Exhibition of Black and White Photography

“I’ve been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black.”—Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was an artist who understood color. As an Impressionist painter, he knew the power of keeping some elements of a work undefined or ambiguous and leaving the viewer to fill in the blanks. Similar to Impressionism, the effectiveness of black and white photography is often not what is conveyed through the image itself but rather what is left unclear or deliberately kept out of the final composition. Through harsh angles and an absence of color, the photographers in this exhibition invent entire narratives within the span of one scene—giving viewers just enough information to dream up the following sequence of the story.