In the 1900s, artists began to explore the colour black. The French painter Pierre Soulages (1919–2022) worked methodically through the 1960s and 70s to develop a black painting he called "outrenoir" or "beyond black." He saw the black colour as both a colour and a non-colour. Soulages is known as the ‘painter of black’ and all its nuances, and he is one of the artists featured in this Collection Exhibition.