Endless Limits: The Work of James Howell, 1962–2014

Endless Limits: The Work of James Howell, 1962–2014

curated by Kaitlin Halloran, Associate Curator and Publications Manager
and Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art
September 13, 2025 – February 8, 2026

Parrish Art Museum
279 Montauk Highway
Water Mill, NY 11976, United States

This exhibition presents the first-ever career retrospective of Howell, placing his ultimate Series 10 in conversation with his earlier bodies of work to reveal his lifelong inquiry into the effects of color, light, and compositional balance. Between the 1960s and 1980s, Howell explored figuration, expressionism, and gestural abstraction through his Flag, Boxcar, Place, Port Blakely, and Points in Fields series. As he became increasingly interested in “dissolving oppositions,” his palette reduced, and the defined edges of his compositions began to soften, giving way to the near-monochrome paintings of his late work. Narrowing his process opened up infinite possibilities for the artist: “You think you might be trapped by setting limits, but I found out a long time ago that everything is in everything,” Howell once expressed. “I remember having these thoughts one day, looking at snow and fog. The views were simplified, and the details were erased. Yet I experienced all the richness.”

American artist James Howell (1935–2014) is best known for his minimalist paintings that explore the vast tonal range of the color gray. In the later decades of his life, he produced hundreds of paintings, prints, and drawings that explore the subtlety and scope of the neutral shade, as well as its relationship to light and perception of space. Titled Series 10 (1996–2014), this body of work emerged from a controlled set of parameters that Howell established, involving mathematical equations and carefully measured pigment formulas. This calculated process resulted in paintings that gradually fade from light to dark and reflect Howell’s meditations on the unquantifiable aspects of life: spirituality and mysticism, chance happenings, and the mutability of atmospheric conditions.

VIDEO INTERVIEW | with Director Laura Bardier and Joy D Howell, President of the James Howell Foundation

Hear from the James Howell Foundation's Executive Director, Laura Bardier, and President D Joy Howell, as they discuss James Howell’s life and work in conjunction with the exhibition Endless Limits: The Work of James Howell, 1962–2014.

Laura Bardier is a New York-based curator, writer, and executive. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the James Howell Foundation and is the Founding Director of the ESTE ARTE Cultural Summit & Art Fair. Since 2018, Bardier has led the James Howell Foundation, overseeing its incorporation and implementing a strategic plan that has successfully expanded access, awareness, and engagement with James Howell’s artistic practice. In February 2014, Bardier established ESTE ARTE, a platform that has significantly reshaped the art landscape of South America. She has written extensively about contemporary art in various publications and has curated several exhibitions. Bardier is actively involved in several professional organizations, serving as the Chair of Governance at ArtTable and as a board member for ICI - Independent Curators International and Creative Capital. She holds an MA in Curatorial Studies from Donau Universität in Austria and an undergraduate degree from Università degli Studi di Firenze in Italy.

D. Joy Howell, President of the James Howell Foundation, worked closely with her late husband, James Howell, for many years, assisting with his painting process and documenting his artistic development. Howell also operated a printmaking workshop where she collaborated with artists and produced editions. Her meticulous archival stewardship has created a vital record of James Howell’s life and practice.

CURATOR-LED TOUR | Associate Curators Kaitlin Halloran & Scout Hutchinson

Installation view of Endless Limits: The Work of James Howell, 1962–2014 at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (September 13, 2025–February 8, 2026). Photo: © Gary Mamay.

Scout Hutchinson brings ten years of curatorial experience working with arts institutions, most recently as a Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she oversaw the Sondra Gilman Study Center for works on paper and worked closely with the permanent collection. At the Whitney, she was a curatorial assistant for the traveling exhibition Ruth Asawa Through Line, co-organized Wanda Gág’s World, and curated the current collection exhibition What It Becomes. Prior to that, she held curatorial and research positions at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Hauser & Wirth Institute, and the Jewish Museum, and was an inaugural research fellow with the Holt/Smithson Foundation in 2021. As the Associate Curator of Exhibitions, Hutchinson will contribute her varied expertise to the Museum’s growing roster of exhibitions.

Kaitlin Halloran, who began her tenure at the Parrish as an intern in 2019, has quickly become an integral part of the curatorial team. Joining the Museum as Curatorial Assistant and Publications Coordinator in 2022, Halloran worked closely with former Cullman Chief Curator, Alicia G. Longwell, Ph.D. on exhibitions An Art of Changes: Jasper Johns Prints, 1960–2018 and Joaquín Sorolla and Esteban Vicente: In the Light of the Garden. Earlier this year, as Assistant Curator, Halloran curated the permanent collection installation Across the Avenues: Fairfield Porter in New York, an exhibition that Lance Esplund of the Wall Street Journal called, “deftly mounted” and “. . .an exhilarating, perfectly positioned in-house show.” Halloran co-curated Parrish Road Show | Andrea Cote: To Belong to the World and is currently collaborating with Museum Executive Director Mónica Ramírez-Montagut on next year’s major exhibition Sean Scully: The Albee Barn, Montauk. Additionally, she led the publication of Artists Choose Parrish and is managing the Bank of America conservation grant for William Merritt Chase’s A Comfortable Corner.

PUBLIC TALK | with professor Jason Rosenfeld

Jason Rosenfeld has been a member of the faculty at MMC since fall 2003. Dr. Rosenfeld received his B.A. from Duke University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with a dissertation titled New Languages of Nature in Victorian England: The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape, Natural History and Modern Architecture in the 1850s. He has previously taught at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, New York University, and Queens College, City University of New York. Academic interests include contemporary art and issues in figuration and landscape, art and architecture in New York City, nineteenth-century European art, British art, specifically Victorian and the Pre-Raphaelites, and modern architecture.

Parrish Art Museum
279 Montauk Highway
Water Mill, NY 11976 United States

October 24, 3 PM - 4 PM
Register here

PUBLICATION | ENDLESS LIMITS: THE WORK OF JAMES HOWELL
ESSAYS BY Kaitlin Halloran, Scout Hutchinson, Jason Rosenfeld AND Hiroshi Sugimoto

Endless Limits: The Work of James Howell, 1962-2014 provides a close examination of the abstract painter James Howell, from his early figurative works made while living on Bainbridge Island, WA, to his mathematical gradient paintings created during his time in Greenwich Village, NY. Howell's unwavering dedication to color and light is represented throughout his first-ever career retrospective, taking place on the East End of Long Island at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY. The artist's connection to Long Island, including his friendship with artist Fairfield Porter and his time spent living and working in Montauk later in life, is explored throughout the volume. This fully illustrated catalog features essays by the exhibition's curators, Kaitlin Halloran and Scout Hutchinson, as well as art historian Jason Rosenfeld. Each offers a closer look at Howell during distinct moments throughout his career. The catalog also includes an essay by Hiroshi Sugimoto—an artist Howell deeply admired—on his Seascapes series.

Texts by: Laura Bardier, Kaitlin Halloran, Scout Hutchinson, Jason Rosenfeld, and Hiroshi Sugimoto
Edited by Kaitlin Halloran and Scout Hutchinson.
English
December 2025, 148 Pages, 80 Photos
Hardcover
260 mm x 300 mm

Hatje Cantz Verlag
Mommsenstraße 27
10629 Berlin
https://www.hatjecantz.com/
ISBN: 978-3-7757-6243-4

First published in 2025 by Hatje Cantz
© 2025 Hatje Cantz and James Howell Foundation, Inc.

Parrish Art Museum
279 Montauk Highway
Water Mill, NY 11976, United States
Sat, September 13, 2025– Sun, February 8, 2026
www.parrishart.org

Endless Limits: The Work of James Howell, 1962–2014 is co-organized by Kaitlin Halloran, Associate Curator and Publications Manager, and Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish Art Museum, and is supported by the James Howell Foundation and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.

About the Parrish Art Museum
Inspired by the natural setting and historical artistic community of Long Island’s East End, the Parrish Art Museum celebrates its legacy through a distinctive contemporary lens and socially conscious global context. The Parrish illuminates the creative process and how art, architecture, and design transform our experiences and our communities, and how we relate to the world. Access to relevant cultural engagement, artistic inspiration, a natural environment, and architectural ingenuity characterizes the museum experience as a unique destination for the region, the nation, and the world.