Peter Joseph was born in London in 1929. He studied in Florence, and painted figuratively until 1959, when he went to the Tate to see “The New American Painting,” an exhibition of formidable works by the Abstract Expressionist painters Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Joseph turned to geometry, color, space. A few years later, another epiphany: he fell asleep at the cinema and upon waking became fascinated with the traces of residual light on the played-out screen. Onward to his monumental two-color paintings. Throughout his career, Joseph stayed true to his minimalist tendency, experimenting with subtle tonal differences in his studio in the countryside. In the first retrospective since his death in 2020, Lisson Gallery celebrates Joseph’s life and artistic breakthroughs, paying homage to the artist it represented for over 50 years. —E.C.