Tone at The Studio Museum in Harlem: Black, White, and Every Value Between

The Studio Museum in Harlem, at 144 West 125th Street, is presenting Tone, a group exhibition on view through January 3, 2027. Its subject is tonal range: black, white, and every value in between, treated not as a technical condition but as a material language of its own.

The show begins with the earliest surviving photograph, Nicéphore Niépce's View from the Window at Le Gras (1826/27), an image built from gradual variations of tone rather than from line. A second reference point is Roy DeCarava's Window, Pot, and Stove (1951), which shows tone describing not only form but also visual rhythm, carried by a sequence of light and shadow. Black-and-white photography, the exhibition suggests, depends on understanding the tonal scale: knowing when to compress or expand contrast, preserving subtle gradations, and giving shadows and highlights equal expressive weight.

Nineteen artists are included: Jules Allen, an 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. Not every work is a photograph. Drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures sit together, linked by a shared commitment to constructing images through tone.

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

The Studio Museum is a hub for artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally. For visitors interested in Black photography and painting, the show offers a chance to compare very different practices through one visual question.