Though little known in his home country of Belgium, the artist Jef Verheyen (1932–1984) was a pivotal figure in bringing conceptual art into the Flemish tradition. A master of monochromy, Verheyen used a pitch-black paint that mimicked the cosmos and pale pastels that evoked the sunrise. He experimented with geometry, creating abstract interplays between shape and color. Verheyen’s goal was to create a window into the infinite, the unknown. “I paint in order to see,” he explained. Forty years after his death, the first solo exhibition of Verheyen’s work, from his early ceramics to his abstract paintings, is on view in his hometown of Antwerp. —Paulina Prosnitz