1946 in art

Events from the year 1946 in art.

Events

 * March – Art collector Peggy Guggenheim publishes the first edition of her autobiographical Out of This Century in the United States.
 * April 2 – Jackson Pollock's third solo exhibition opens in the Daylight Gallery of Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century gallery on Manhattan.
 * May 22 – The Equestrian statue of Christian V recast in bronze by Einar Utzon-Frank (1688 original by Abraham-César Lamoureux) is unveiled on Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen.
 * October 11 – National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina established in Sarajevo.
 * October 24 – In a double ceremony, Max Ernst (having been divorced from Peggy Guggenheim) marries Dorothea Tanning and Man Ray marries Juliet P. Browner in Beverly Hills, California.
 * The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism is founded by Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, and others.
 * The Borough Group of artists is founded in London by Cliff Holden.
 * Jean Dubuffet exhibits the series of works with paint mixed with sand and gravel, Hautes Pâtes, at the Galérie René Drouin.
 * Jacob Lawrence begins painting his War Series.
 * Sidney Nolan begins his first series of paintings of Ned Kelly.
 * David Olère begins to produce artworks based on his experiences as Jewish Sonderkommando inmate 106144 of Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
 * Musée de la Chartreuse, Molsheim, France, established (at this time under the name "Musée municipal")

Awards

 * Archibald Prize: William Dargie – L C Robson, MC, MA

Works

 * Harold Abbott – Triptych of Suffering
 * George Ault – Bright Light at Russell's Corners
 * Francis Bacon
 * Painting (1946)
 * Study for Man with Microphones (later abandoned and slashed by the artist)
 * Charles Comfort – Dieppe Raid
 * Dean Cornwell - The History of Transportation (lobby mural) at 10 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City (formerly the headquarters of Eastern Airlines)
 * Salvador Dalí – The Temptation of St. Anthony
 * Jean Dubuffet – Apartment Houses
 * Jacob Epstein – Bust of Winston Churchill
 * M. C. Escher – lithographs
 * Magic Mirror
 * Three Spheres II
 * Sawlaram Haldankar – Glow of Hope
 * Barbara Hepworth – sculptures
 * Pelagos
 * Tides
 * Edward Hopper – Approaching a City
 * Dame Laura Knight – The Dock, Nuremberg
 * L. S. Lowry – Good Friday, Daisy Nook
 * Henri Matisse – L'Asie
 * Georgia O'Keeffe – Bare Tree Trunks With Snow
 * Pablo Picasso – Woman-Flower
 * Ad Reinhardt - How to Look at Modern Art in America
 * Norman Rockwell - "Boy in a Dining Car"
 * William Scott – The Frying Pan
 * Andrew Wyeth – Winter 1946
 * Jack Butler Yeats
 * Men of Destiny
 * The Whistle of a Jacket

Exhibitions

 * Contemporary British Art – Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, and the City Art Museum, St Louis.

Births

 * January 8 – Betty Beaumont, Canadian American site-specific artist, all media
 * January 10 – Kalidas Karmakar, Bangladeshi artist (d. 2019)
 * January 18 – Kirk Varnedoe, American art historian, writer and curator (d. 2003)
 * January 26 – Timothy Clifford, English art historian and curator
 * February 9 – Peter Linde, Swedish sculptor
 * April 11 – Chris Burden, American performance and installation artist and sculptor (d. 2015)
 * April 27 – Nicholas Serota, English curator
 * May 30 – Jan de Bie, painter and photographer (d. 2021)
 * June 29 – Egon von Fürstenberg, Swiss fashion designer (d. 2004)
 * July 6 – Jamie Wyeth, American realist painter
 * July 11 – Chris Killip, Manx-born documentary photographer (d. 2020)
 * July 25 – Nicole Farhi, French sculptor and fashion designer
 * September 27 – T. C. Cannon, Native American painter (d. 1978)
 * November 4 – Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer (d. 1989)
 * November 5 – Herman Brood, Dutch musician, painter and media personality (d. 2001)
 * November 20 – Alice Aycock, American sculptor and installation artist
 * December 2 – Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer (k. 1997)
 * December 8 – Jacques Bourboulon, French nude and fashion photographer
 * December 12 – Don Gummer, American sculptor
 * December 25 – Christopher Frayling, English cultural historian

Deaths

 * January 2 – O'Galop (Marius Rossillon), French cartoonist (b. 1867)
 * January 23 – Helene Schjerfbeck, Finnish painter (b. 1862)
 * February 17
 * Dorothy Gibson, American artist's model and silent film actress (b. 1889)
 * Sir George Pirie, Scottish painter (b. 1863)
 * July 11 – Paul Nash, English painter (b. 1889)
 * July 13 – Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer (b. 1864)
 * July 17 – Florence Fuller, Australian painter (b. 1867)
 * October 7 - C. R. W. Nevinson, English war artist (b. 1889)
 * October 28 – Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Chilean painter (b. 1887)
 * October 30 – Charles Despiau, French sculptor (b. 1874)
 * November 23
 * Arthur Dove, American abstract painter (b. 1880)
 * Léon Spilliaert, Belgian symbolist painter and graphic artist (b. 1881)
 * November 24 – László Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian painter and photographer (b. 1895)
 * December 28 – Elie Nadelman, Polish-born American sculptor (b. 1882)
 * December 29 – Arnold Friedman, American Modernist painter (b. 1874)