Soulages» fascination with black, the tone with which he had come almost exclusively to mark his canvases, became a practical obsession in 1979 with the creation of
his first outrenoir (beyond black) paintings.
The same year he exhibited at the Pompidou Centre his
first «mono pigmentaires» paintings, based on the reflection of light on the surface states of black, later called «
outrenoir» (the word «
outrenoir» can be translated loosely from French as «beyond black»).