Artists: Brice Marden - Paul Klee - Piet Mondrian

Luxembourg + Co., London, presents Illuminations, an exhibition organised in collaboration with Sam Fogg. Opening on the occasion of London Gallery Weekend 2026, the display explores the influence and relevance of stained-glass window making on modern art practices through the lens of three artists – Piet Mondrian (1872-1044), Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Brice Marden (1938-2023).

The wealth of technical and stylistic tools developed by stained-glass artisans has long served as a rife source of inspiration for other artistic practices and media, often anticipating new ideas concerning the way a picture can be fragmented, divided into a grid, a pattern, or a colour scheme, centuries prior to the realisation of these ideas in the context of modern art.

The exhibition Illuminations includes a small yet varied group of stained-glass works that manifest such ideas, ranging from medieval examples from within ecclesial contexts through nineteenth century compositions manufactured for domestic uses such as those attributed to the influential British designer Christopher Dresser (1834-1904).

Presented in dialogue with these pre-twentieth century pieces is a selection of watercolour compositions on paper by Swiss-born German artist Paul Klee. Appointed Master of Form (Formmeister) at the Bauhaus in 1921, Klee took charge of the stained-glass workshop of the school along with bookbinding and, later, also mural painting. His study of stained-glass work soon affected his own practice and he began to explore ways to emanate light from his works using watercolours in thin layers and bright pigments, allowing transparency and reflection, and organising the pictures as a combination of structured panels. As a result, Klee became an important reference for many post-war artists who sought to explore illumination in their work. not least the American Minimalist Brice Marden, who was commissioned by the municipality of Basel to design the stained-glass windows of the Basel Cathedral (Basel Münster) in 1977. Already in-vested in search after the spiritual impact of colour surfaces and meandering lines, Marden spent nearly a decade working on his window compositions, even after the city of Basel decided not to pursue the realisation of the project. Unlike Klee, however, Marden’s Windows were characterised by a dark, nearly opaque treatment of the colour surfaces and devoid of any direct symbolic references. In addition to these cycles of work by Klee and Marden, the exhibition also includes a large early painting by Piet Mondrian from 1908 showing the artist’s fascination with spirituality, ‘divine light’, and indeed also horizontality.

Presented in conversation across these varied historical and geographic contexts, the works on view all draw on the physical, intellectual, and spiritual connotations associated with the practice of stained-glass window making.